I haven’t been very good lately about posting to this blog. Can I blame it on the summer heat? Certainly the heat has been affecting my pace lately and there are some days that I can barely finish my run without feeling like I’m going to collapse. Each day that I get out to run, I’m simply hoping to finish. Not fast, not pretty…just finish. It’s really amazing how much the heat and humidity can change everything that I thought I knew about running.
I’m currently in Week 7 of the Houston Fit Fall training group. While I was attending the 5k/10k group in the Spring, I decided to try running with the Half Marathon training group for the Fall. (And no, I haven’t signed up for a 1/2 marathon…) The training started on May 14th. I missed the first class but I have been pretty consistent in attending most of the training classes since then. With this training, I’ve added many more miles in June and finished June with my highest monthly total to date – just over 48 miles.
With Houston Fit, our schedule is Tuesday evening for a Hill Run, which will transition later in the schedule to speed work. Then Thursday evening is a tempo run and Saturday is our long run. We are supposed to also run on Mondays on our own, which I do on Sundays. Last Saturday our long run was 5 miles but this weekend will be our first 6 mile run. I hope that I can make it. Because of the high heat and humidity, I’ve been resorting to 3/1 intervals on the long run, which helps some…but not entirely. I try and run as much as I can for the other days, walking only when I absolutely need to – which is more often than not in this heat!
This past weekend, however, I tried something different to see if I could shake things up and get some more energy. I bought several different kinds of fuel (Sport Beans, GU and Clif Bloks) to see if that would help. So on Saturday, I did an experiment. I ate 1/2 of a banana instead of Ezekiel toast with almond butter for breakfast, then mixed 1/2 of a Nuun into my water bottle. I ate several Sport Beans on the drive over to Memorial Park and took extra beans with me. The first mile was hard, as usual, but it didn’t seem quite as difficult despite being in the mid-80s and humid. About 2 miles in, I ate a couple of the beans and then every 1/2 mile or so, I ate 2 more. And what do you know??? IT WORKED!! I actually sprinted the last 1/4 mile! I had way more energy than usual and even though I was affected by the heat – I certainly had more energy than in previous weeks.
So I decided to try using the Sport Beans again on my Sunday run with Shelley. As you know, I’ve been running with Shelley at Memorial Park on Sundays for quite awhile now. Earlier this Spring, I was consistently running around the park without stopping but when the heat and humidity started, I haven’t been able to do it. This run, however, I only had to stop once for water at about 3/4 of the way. WOW! I think that Sport Beans must be MAGIC BEANS!! (I also had the 1/2 banana instead of almond butter on Ezekiel toast.)
Tonight we’re doing hills again so this will be my first evening run with my new MAGIC BEANS! Wish me luck!
(Note to readers: I purchased the Sport Beans, GU and Clif Bloks. This blog post is not an advertisement for any of them. Nor for Ezekiel bread. These are simply things that I’m trying and/or have/are using. I didn’t get any free trials on these products nor have I been paid to try them out.)
