Summer, Summer, Summertime, Time To ...

Summer officially arrived on Wednesday, and it definitely made sure to announce its presence. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been thinking some lately about the direction of my training over the next few months, and the impending heat/humidity was certainly factoring into my thoughts. If I had any doubts, Wednesday’s run may have erased them, confirming that it’s difficult to do anything in 90+ degree weather, much less run hard.

Speaking of that Wednesday run, knowing the conditions would be pretty brutal, we decided to skip any structured faster running in favor of just a good, hilly medium long run at a steady pace. We set out to run the Hanging Rock via Red Lane loop from Roanoke College, a course that even on a good day is fairly tough, as it has over 1,200’ of total elevation change. Since Wednesday is normally a workout day, I didn’t want the pace to dawdle, so I kept it fairly steady the first 3 miles (almost all uphill) then started to lean on it a bit more thereafter. From the fourth mile to the tenth mile, I ran miles in the 6:20’s and 6:30’s, but before I got even halfway through, I was feeling it and knew it was going to be rough. By the end of 11 miles, I was pretty well overheated and wiped out. In fact, I was even a little lightheaded. Aside from a couple muscle cramps later in the evening, I recovered quickly, but the effort it took to run no faster than I did told the story.

That said, I’ve decided to go ahead and turn my attention towards the Charleston Distance Run on Labor Day weekend and gear my training primarily towards that race. It’s 15 miles with some brutal hills in the first third of the race, so certainly it requires proper preparation. I don’t plan on killing myself at this race, as doing so on this course could cause effects that might linger into the fall racing season, but I would still like to put in a decent effort and represent myself in a respectable manner. In other words, I’ll take a somewhat conservative approach on race day, possibly very conservative pending the weather, and won’t be shooting to run as fast as possible, but at the same time, I don’t want to treat it as nothing more than a weekly long run.

So, going forward, I’ll be looking to focus on the sort of training I’ll need to run a solid 15 miles. If that training goes well, I think it will lay a great strength base that will really pay off this fall when the weather is more conducive to hammering out some fast intervals in workouts and subsequently some fast races as well. My only hesitancy with this is I know my real weakness is my 5k/10k speed. However, I just have a feeling that trying to work on that all summer will not only be futile at times thanks to the weather but could also lead to burnout by the fall. I’ll definitely keep some turnover work in my schedule just to work on the basic speed and neuromuscular side of things, but I’ll leave the VO2 work to the fall when it’s more productive. If you cycle your training correctly in distance running it can work really well, with the strength phase helping you hold your race pace longer and the speed phase helping your pace feel easier. That’s my goal. Bring on the summer, and bring on the CDR!