our choices show what we truly are

Today  it was a hot day the wind from Sahara brought the temperatures around and above 100F under my porch. This is not very common, I waited to go running until 6pm when a light breeze made the heat more bearable.

The plan was to go out slow and easy around the lake after last night race, but I met a couple of running friends that wanted to do something faster and rather than going by myself I drafted after them, we did a roller coaster route for 10km at 4:35/km pace (45:47) and then one of  them stopped with the other companion with did a 6km cooldown at a more relaxing pace finishing 10 miles in 1:18 and change.

At the end I was very happy about this "recovery" run, at least going fast had the advantage of making the sweating time shorter.

8.6 miles in 1:13:48. My goal was again to go nice and easy, instead I met two other friends, not the same ones of last night, but the outcome was the same: the pace was a little bit too fast. I was happy to run with one of this guys, he doesn't race but he is always there every night for a run and I was really surprised to see him keeping sub 8min/mile for the whole run without any problem. I tried to convince him to start racing, but he wasn't converted at the end. It is always nice running and chatting with someone else, it makes running much more enjoyable and faster, even during recovery runs.

Back to my usual solo run, no friends tonight. After 2 miles I felt the temperatures unbearably hot and humid, I still managed to keep moving for the rest of the run at a very slow and relaxing pace. I finished 8 miles in 1:19, I achieved my goal to keep the pace under control and finally I started my  recovery after three consecutive days of faster pace.

I hope that this african weather pattern will go away soon, is becoming annoying.

Fast  workout night. 5X1600m with 3:00 recovery jog.

These were the splits: 6:07, 6:10, 6:12, 6:19, 6:18. During the recovery I covered between 430m and 490m.

I wanted to average below 6:15 and no interval above 6:15, the first goal was accomplished, I have to still work on the second one. Two weeks ago I was more consistent running around 6:13, this time I tried since the beginning to push my pace around and below 6:10 but as it is clear from the fourth interval I don't have it in my legs yet.

Overall I was very satisfied about the outcome, plus tonight temperatures and humidity were higher than two weeks ago. As added bonus this is the first time since 2003, when I started running, that I am keeping a good mileage, with some fast miles during the month of august, heat is the best killer of my good running intentions, if I can survive for one more week august will be over and hopefully the saharian wind will be replaced by a much cooler and refreshing atlantic jetstream. I hope this "character-building I-don't-want-to-go-running-with-this-heat" will be translated in faster times in the upcoming races.

8 recovery miles around mount Venere, not much else to report.

Nice relaxing run at 5pm, it was hot and humid, 6.2 miles in 1hour.

Very simple run: I wanted an half-marathon at marathon pace (4:30/km) and this is what I got. I woke up later than I planned and I didn't start until 8:40 am when the sun was already up and running, I didn't have any problem to keep the pace until mile 12 when dehydration, heat and the perspective of having two big black toe nails materialized.

I didn't have any water with me in the car and by the time I was home 10 minutes later, I was really dehydrated, I usually check my weight before and after medium/long runs and today I lost 2.5 kg. My toenails on top of that were,as expected, dark and gingerly painful. This was  related to the new wave inspire shoes, last week  I bought the wave fortis and with those I got two huge blisters on  my left foot, so right now I don't have a good new pair of shoes to run long distances, without having foot problems, except for my 2000 miles old wave inspire.

The only good thing it was my time it took me 1:35:00 for 13.1 miles (I intentionally slowed down big time during  the last 0.2 miles to finish exactly in 1:35:00). Now time to ice bath and a few napping hours.