Testing (and tasting) sweat~

With summer now a week old, the Big Butts 50K a little over a month away, the next three weeks are going to be very intensive leading up to a two week taper beginning July 15^th.

The heat is definitely becoming a factor in my training as was evident in today’s run from 12 noon until about 2:30 in 93º heat.  The sun’s radiant heat is what zaps you and I was running the neighbor hood on asphalt with houses reflecting the heat as well.

The picture to the left says it all.  The sun was directly overhead and beating down on me!  I’ll have to admit that I only ran 10 miles instead of the planned 12 because it was just taking so long and my conditioning was lacking for that kind of radiant heat and little shade.

But, I guess that’s what the training and experimenting is all about.  I only took a 20oz. bottle with NUUN in it with me this time.  Bad idea.  I ran out of water within the first forty –five minutes.  From now on, I’ll be wearing my hydration vest with a 70 oz. bladder on ALL my training runs.

When I look at the pictures of all the runners in those 100 mile endurance races, they all have the little hand held 20 oz. bottles to carry and sip water.  I guess I’ll look like a newbie with my hydration vest on at the BB50K, but that’s ok.  It’s gonna be hot and I don’t want to run out of water.

The rest of the week looks like more of the same although I’ll be running in the morning on most of the other days.  48 miles to go for the week according to the training plan.

I’ll try to update this blog more often as the BB50K draws near.

Gotta run,

Chuck

The Vagabond Runner.

A month of running~

I’ve not written in the pages for over a month, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been running.  The weather here in June is beginning to heat up and my acclimation preparation has been paying off.

I’ve done several long runs on the mountain bike trail as well as the Butts Park., Big Butts 50k course.  The first time I ran on the Big Butts course was a few weeks back with Race Director/Owner, John Brower.  My goal was 22 miles, approximately 3 ½ loops on the 6 mile course. 

To get the full effect of the heat, we started out at noon with the temperature around

80.

As I started out on the first loop, I now realize that I started out too fast.  My goal was to run 12:00/mile to try to finish the event in a little over 6 hrs.  After the first two loops, my body was feeling pretty achy.  

That was all John wanted to run for that day because he had just finished a 100 miler a couple of weeks before and was just then getting back to running. 

So we finished two loops at 12 miles and I was to go on alone.  As I mentioned before, I could only go for another 6 miles. When I got back to my cooler at the start, I knew I was done for the day.  My body was feeling kind of sore and my lower legs were tightening up.  I was cooked.

Last week, my goal was to run the 4 loops on the Big Butts course in good form in the afternoon.  So I started out slow.  With all the acclimation, training and work I’ve been doing, it’s beginning to pay off.  I kept my pace around 13:00 and finished the 24 miles in 4:40.  That was better than I expected.

The next time run the BB course is in about a week.  I know it will be getting hotter because I’ll be running not only in June, but in the afternoon in June.  I know the acclimation is working because the heat isn’t bothering me so much.  Especially the humidity!  I’m just used to it, I guess.

Sprinkled in between these long runs have been my maintenance runs of 5, 8 and 10 mile runs.  The mileage will become longer as the event date approaches.  Right now, I’m feeling pretty good.

Gotta run,

Chuck

The Vagabond Runner.