Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Washington DC: The Oven



On Monday morning, after a night of fireworks, I woke up on my boat and hit the streets of Hyannis for a run. At 8am, the sun was already beaming down. It was a lot different than the last time I ran around here. I was a little tired after running long and hard the day before even though that was at the end of a low mileage week (57), but all and all it was a good run.

At dawn on Tuesday I flew back to Washington. The air was 20 degrees warmer than it had been in Massachusetts. That afternoon the temperature climbed to 102, or 103 or 104 depending on who you source, either way it was damn damn hot. My face was drenched in sweat after simply WALKING to the train that morning. My mid-day coffee break at 3pm was practically a death march. I gulped hard when thinking about my evening run...but then I thought better to gulp water. At 6:45pm I shuffled out the door and made my way down M Street to Rock Creek Park. I proceeded to run, slowly, up the trail and into the zoo. I drank water as often as I came across faucets. Pandas, emus and elephants laughed at me as I labored up the long hill that cuts down through the zoo. The going was tough at times, but I found that keeping the pace easy was key. 9 was enough today.

Wednesday morning dawned humid and I could only muster 7 and a half. I was soaked to the bone and it wasn't even 8am yet. More so than the heat/humidity, my right quad seemed to ache and at one point seized up. More proof that I am getting old. I need to use the foam roller and stretch this out. the problem is, I, like most runners won't do that. Why is that?

Off for a night run with Karl. I got to get above 10 a day.

On an unrelated note - my year to date mileage total on July 4 was 1776.

3 comments:

RM said...

1. We don't use foam rollers because we are runners and want to run. Rolling is extra work. If we had someone in charge of making sure we would use it, we would!

2. That's a really cool mileage statistic!

Jake Marren said...

Looking at my records, I began July 4 at 1770 miles and ended at 1780 miles. How did I run the same amount of miles as you? Why are you so much faster than I am?

KLIM said...

You ran a TON of miles leading up to Boston. I ran slightly less during that time, but still averaged 80s for a good 3 months. I, like you, took May mostly off.

I can't answer your second question, but will say that you were "robbed" of good races this spring due to happenstance (weather for 13.1 and then a bad day for 26.2).

Your day will come.