Sunday, February 16, 2014

The Heat and the Rain

Distance 45.9km [total: minimalist 329.1km: Barefoot 5826.2km] Week07

Monday, 10-Feb. 7km

A warm day in the mid 30's, it was slightly cooler by the beach but too hot to run along the road so I stuck to running on the sand. I had a game of chase with a friend of mine who was running a shorter distance, I gave them a start of 3km which really was a bit too much to make up the distance over a 7km run. My handicap run didn't work and my friend was back at base with 10 minutes to spare. This certainly gave my lungs a good work out though as I treid in vain to catch up

Wednesday, 12-Feb. 8.2km

A scorcher of a day at 43C, luckily I was able to enjoy the air conditioning at work for most of the day. When I got back to my small flat it was around 32C inside, not a good night for sleeping. I called around to my uncles to collect my mail and decided to go for a run at the same time. I set off for a run around the lake just after sunset in a temperature of 38C. The ground was warm but not blisteringly hot, the concrete was good to run on, the brick on the eastern side of the lake was the hottest. After just 3km my throat was parched. I didn't carry any water with me as it was only a short run. I kept chugging along in a good rhythm without overheating. When I got back I drank around 6 glasses of water to replenish that fluid lost.

Thursday, 13-Feb. 10km

The promised rain came in early today, I wasn't expecting it until the late afternoon or early evening. It had been a hot uncomfortable night with a temp that hadn't dropped below 30C outside. We have now broken the long standing record of days above 40C that was set in 1897 of 11 days. This has been one hot summer. I went on a late evening run, setting off at 7.30pm. The rain had stopped but it was still warm, I ran along the foreshore from Grange to West Beach. The path was damp and felt good underfoot, the humidity was high so it sapped my energy, I'm so used to running in hot low humidit, the change takes some getting used to. I ran the last 2km along the almost dark beach, only coming across one or two stragglers who had not left the beach yet.

Saturday, 15-Feb. 12.5km

Felt flat as a pancake today, was it the heat of earlier in the week or the now cooler humid air left over after a day and a half of rain. Still can't shake the tendon stiffness, it gets no worse and it gets no better it is just there and makes my running less enjoyable. I set off from Grange on my run to Semaphore, my longest run for a while. The wind was behind me on the way up and in my face on the way back. It was pretty draining. I was glad to get it over with today. I had to will myself to run those last few kilometres into the wind. The humidity was around 65% today.

Sunday, 16-Feb. 8.2km

A cool morning with a strong southerly breeze. I felt tired this morning and got up at the last minute and headed down to the lake. It took me a while to get the running engine going but it did fire up after a kilometre and it ended up a half decent run. I couldn't see any more 40C days forecast for the week so that is good. All the temperatures are in the mid 20's.
All in all I did a decent weeks running, more distance than I thought.

Neil

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