Heat

It is summer in the south, which means obscenely high heat and humidity. This makes it fairly unpleasant to go outside, much less train for a race. In any case, I have been running in temperatures well above 80 degrees and equally nasty humidity, and this includes both my easy runs and my harder runs. It's pretty impressive how much sweat comes off after a 45 minute run.

It was about this time last year that I was training for my first half-marathon, and I remember thinking that the heat was horrid and that I'd never get used to it. It took a few weeks, but I did get somewhat acclimated (the physiology of which is quite fascinating, but I'll spare the details). I did lose some heat tolerance over the winter, but I feel like I was able to acclimate faster this summer. Additionally, I do try to pick routes where there is shade and not so many hills, particularly on the really hot and humid days. We're heading into August, so hopefully there will just be another month of the really bad stuff. I know I'm definitely looking forward to fall.

Classmate Happenings

This summer has been quite eventful for a couple of my classmates, with some wonderful and some sad things going on.

First of all, for the good news. my classmate and good friend Karla delivered her triplets one month ago. Mom, dad, and babies are doing wonderfully.

Seondly, for the sad news. My classmate JJ unexpectedly lost his dad a few days ago. From what I understand, JJ's dad was helping him move into his new apartment in Indiana and died suddenly of a heart attack.

Karla and JJ, our thoughts are definitely with you.

Restarting the Training Plan

With the Blue Ridge Relay coming up in a little over a month, I am now back into my structured training program, courtesy of the SmartCoach tool on Runnersworld.com. I had initially started to train in June, but I had to take a bit of a break from it for a few weeks, for good reason.

About a month ago, Ben and I found out we were pregnant, and with that knowledge, I stopped doing tempo runs and long runs. Basically, I just did shorter runs of 4-6 miles at an easy pace, and I did this more to stay active rather than with any kind of racing goal in mind. Unfortunately, our pregnancy ended in a miscarriage a little over a week ago, at the 8-week mark.

So now I am building back up to pace and mileage in anticipation for the relay. However, I will say that my goals are a bit different with this race. Firstly, I've decided not to train as hard as I have in the past for the half-marathons. This is due to a couple factors; the heat and humidity of Chapel Hill in the summer and the short time left until the race. Secondly, this is a team effort, and I am running with people of all ability levels, and so I really just want to have fun with my teammates and enjoy the experience. So I don't think I'll be doing any more long runs over 10 miles for a while, although I still need to do tempo runs and maybe some speed workouts to keep up my pace. But running hilly terrain is probably one of the best things I can do right now, given that the race is in the mountains. Well, they don't call this place "Chapel Hill" for nothing!

Dog Days of Summer, Part 2

Linus the Beagle is staying with us again this week while his owners are at a wedding in Philly. Right now, he is lying on the couch with his head on a pillow, eyes closed, sawing logs like a lumberjack.

Relay Team Website

As I mentioned before, I am part of a 12-member team that will be running the Blue Ridge Relay on September 5-6. We are the Bear-Breasted Second Basemen, and we are running to raise money for breast cancer patients at UNC. Click here to view our MySpace page. It is not completely finished, as we don't have pics or biosketches of everyone, but you can see what's up there for now.