Thursday, July 21, 2011

8 + 8 + 16 in Minneapolis

Last week, I went to Minneapolis to visit Bryan while he's on his urology rotation for the month of July. I tried my hardest to keep up with my marathon training, but it was very difficult with the heat wave that is still going through the midwest.

Sorry no photos on this post - I didn't take my phone with me due to rain, heat and humidity!

Wednesday's run was a good 8 miles. I did two smaller loops in a warm drizzle around Lake Nokomis. This time, I didn't even care that the water fountains were so sparce. I wasn't overheating, so I felt totally fine! That made me feel better about my training!

Saturday's 8 mile run was pretty miserable. At 7am the temperature was already 82 with intense humidity. I contemplated getting up super early and running then, but the temperature was 80 at 5am and 81 at 6am. I figured that I'd rather sleep two more hours than get up and run in only two degrees cooler weather. The humidity in Minneapolis is totally insane in the summer and it makes it feel so much more hot outside! I made it the whole 8 miles, but I had to stop and walk more often that I usually do and when I got home I was just exhausted.

I was quite nervous about Sundays 16 mile run because the weather was expected to be worse. There was a heat advisory out and the heat index was supposed to be around 115, so I knew that it was going to be rough, no matter how early I started. I planned a route that included 2 loops around Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet that were 6.8 miles and then once around Lake Harriet at the end would equal approximately 16 miles. Well, I decided before I left that I was going to be safe over all other things, and I knew there was a great chance that I would not complete the run. And I was okay with it. I started running, with my water bottle in hand, and within 5 minutes I could have wrung out my sports bra. There were lines of sweat/condensation drips that were hanging off of the bottom of my arms that swayed with me as I ran. Since the dew point and temperature were already so high, my sweat would not evaporate off of me. It was like running in a steam room. It was awful. I just tried to get into some sort of groove, but it was very hard. Everytime I was under some shade or a water fountain, I took a quick break to try to cool down just a little bit. I was surprised at how many people were out braving this heat! Every person just looked miserable and everyone was running sluggishly. I ended up making it around the loop for the first time and took a break by the car to refill my water bottle and take a Gu gel. I was feeling okay after my break. I started out for the hellish second loop. I made it just less than half way around and decided to turn around because I felt like my body was overheating. I didn't want to get to the point where I was lightheaded, weak or even slightly faint because I didn't have my phone on me (I took it on the first loop, but it froze within 5 minutes due to the heat/humidity). It seemed to take forever to get back to my car and once I did, I could barely stand the heat anymore. I think I ended up running about 13 miles all together, but I felt like I had ran about 20. I was so happy to get home, take a cold shower, and put on my compression socks!!

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching the Women's World Cup final soccer game, eating good food and drinking LOTS of water!

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