Happy National Running Day!

I’ll be hitting the track today to celebrate. It’s not my normal track day, but I’m heading out of town after work tomorrow, so I decided to fit it in tonight so I could still meet up with a group rather than go it alone. I’m really enjoying the group track workouts with DC Running Coach. We all have our own workouts, but it’s still nice to feel like you’re in it together with the others.

Last week was one of my first really hot track workouts of the summer. Temps were still close to 90 when we started warming up around 6:30 and the sun was beating down. I’ll be the first to admit that I love the heat and I even like the feeling of running in it a lot. I know… crazy. I will concede, however, that it does make me slower and last Thursday was definitely proof of that.

My workout for the week was 2X1 mile at 7:25 and 3X1000 meters at 4:38. With the heat my coach suggested aiming for a 7:30 mile instead. I showed my lack of pacing ability and did the first one in 7:22. This normally wouldn’t be very difficult for me, but I was breathing – in his words, “like I just finished a 5k.” Not ideal! He told me to shoot for 7:35 on the second one, which I did hitting 7:34, but it still felt tougher than a mile at that pace should.

He told me to aim for about 5 seconds slower on the 1000s and really focus on my breathing. I did just that and stopped paying attention to the watch. It made a huge difference. My splits came in at 4:44, 4:42 and 4:41 and I felt a whole lot better than I did on that first mile. I still pushed myself, but I’m learning it’s all about adjustments to make sure you get the best you can out of a workout!

How do you adjust to running in the heat?