The Training Continues

With less than four weeks to go before the Hotlanta Half Marathon, I have been pushing through the training during these summer months.  Thankfully the summer has been quite mild compared to past summers.

A couple weeks ago, I had a great 11 mile long run after walking around the local Six Flags park the day before.  Early morning temperatures were in the low 60s, which made for a pleasant run.

Compare that to last week when the early morning temperature was above 70, and the humidity was well over 80%.  I had the worst run of the whole summer where I needed to take a few brief walking breaks here and there on a 12 mile run, and finished with the worst long run time of the summer.  Humidity is just not my friend in any sense of the word.

What all this means for the race in four weeks time is that until I know what the weather is going to be on that morning, I have no clue what my strategy will be or how I will finish.  I know I have put in all the training, but most of that goes out the door if the conditions are hot and humid.  If I get lucky enough to get one of these cool mornings then my goal or at least a PR is within reach.

Regardless of the outcome of the race at the very least I have the foundation laid to jump right into Goofy training on September 21.  I'll just need to maintain for a couple of weeks, and then hit the ground running for what will be a tough three months of training.

10 K Goal Accomplished

July 4 was the We the Runners 10K on the Big Creek Greenway.  Back when I started this latest training cycle for the Hotlanta Half Marathon next month, I set a goal of finishing this race in under an hour.  I figured if I could do that then I would know that training was where it probably should be.

I will say that the weather on July 4 was nothing like your typical July 4 in Cumming, Georgia.  The temperature at the start was only 61, and the humidity was not bad either.

What this good weather allowed Karen and I to do was come out the gate flying.  I turned a mile 1 pace of 9:03, which is the fastest mile I have ran in any race.  From there I ran every mile at a less than 10 minute pace.  End result was a finish time of 57:43.  This time was 13 minutes faster than my previous official 10K pace.  Nothing to complain about with this time.

However, I am fairly certain that had there been normal July 4 weather, the pace I ran would have been much tougher to accomplish.  I am under no illusions that the August 24 race in downtown Atlanta will be an easy affair.  I have 6 full weeks of training remaining before the taper week, which should give me a chance to train some more in high humidity mornings.

In regards to the race itself.  The We the Runners 10K was very well put together by Zulu Racing.  It was a much more relaxed and laid back alternative to the Peachtree Road Race, and the start/finish was only 10 minutes from my house, which allowed us to sleep in later on July 4.  Not a bad way to spend July 4 morning.