Broken by the heat

Ironically, I wrote about pacing in my previous post and how I would ensure that I paced myself well to finish what I intended to complete. Somehow, my weekend training fell a bit short on what I planned, partly due to pacing but mostly due to the heat.

We probably had one the hottest summer in history, with the lowest maximum being at 29 degrees and had a record 59 days of temperatures over 30 degrees. The weekend just past however, had the mercury rose to about 38-39 degrees. When I did my 100km ride on Saturday morning, I could feel the sun piercing through my skin and I was sweating all over throughout the ride. One tiny advantage was the winds were pretty calm, blowing at about 10kph.

I averaged 29.3kph for the ride. I debated a bit on whether I should do a brick run in the heat, finally I forced myself to do a light jog for about 10 minutes, 2 rounds around John Oldham Park where I parked my car. Li-Ann and I spent the rest of the afternoon in Dome Cafe, Rendezvous Observation City Hotel in Scarborough.

Sunday morning, I had a bit of a sleep in after watching Inception on DVD the night before. Great movie, though I had a bit of trouble following the script. Entertaining, nontheless. I started my run at about 8am under the sun. The plan was to do a long run around my neighbourhood of at least 17.4km (4 rounds) and possibly extend it to 21.7km (5 rounds).

Well, the result was pretty disappointing, as once I completed the 2nd round, I gave up. The combination of the heat and my weak mind won me over that morning. Averaged about 4:30 per km pace for the 8.7km run. We stayed indoors for the rest of the day with the air cond on. But I brought myself to do another 2 rounds later in the evening, at much better pace of 4:23 per km.

Another week of high temperatures to come. Let's see if I finally log in a long run next weekend. I plan to reduce my ride back to 80km, hope that would help.