Last Week: Summer Mileage

52½ miles for the week of May 19th through May 25th

M – 5¼ miles, recovery run, average pace 8:41 mpm, 73°F at 4AM [Dow/Ol]
Tu – 5¼ miles, average pace 7:26 mpm, too warm for a tempo run, 79°F at 4AM [Dow/Ol]
W AM – 5¾ miles, average pace 7:17 mpm, 80°F at 4AM [Dow/B-S]
W PM – 4¼ miles, with some strides on the track, one mile of sprinting the straights and recovering on the curves, a couple more miles general aerobic, then another two sprints on the straights, overall average pace 6:56 mpm, 82°F at 7PM [B’Wood track]
Th – 4¾ miles, recovery run, average pace 8:38 mpm, 81°F at 4AM [Dow]
F - 7½ miles, average pace 7:33, 89°F at 2PM [SeaC/NTrail-MBT/SeaC]
Sa – 7½ miles, average pace 8:28, a nice cool 87°F at 1:30PM [SeaC/NTrail-MBT/SeaC]
Su – 12¼ miles average pace of 8:19 mpm, sunny warm and humid, 86°F from 10AM [FWRes/MacL-2x(2M-MBTrail)/SeaC]


The heat defeated me Sunday and I had to take the short route home. That 8:19 pace is no indication how difficult this run was. My shoes were completely soaked after six or seven miles. I was dizzy and slightly nauseated; sure signs of heat exhaustion. This run felt much worse than a long run at 7-flat pace with reasonable temperatures. But I was surprised that my average heart rate was 129 bpm, closer to a mere recovery run level. Heart rate was increasing the last couple of miles: 143 bpm at a pace just over 8 mpm.
I can’t imagine training for a Fall marathon down here. I know I’ll have plenty of slow miles through September. All I can hope for this Summer is to keep the weekly mileage up in the 50s and develop a good aerobic base for training in cooler temperatures. I'm going to try and keep up wth the strides this year. Even though they're on the Pfitz training schedules, I've never done them consistently because most days they're scheduled I'm running on concrete. But they should fit well with the Wedensday evenings on the track. Hopefully they'll help maintain basic speed while my amin effort is on the mileage base.