Hot slog

No matter how hot a summer day can get, running conditions at 4:00 AM are usually fairly comfortable. I've experienced mornings when it was downright chilly even though the day's high would reach the mid 80's. Yesterday morning was cool and humid but today was hot and very humid. As I stepped out for my warmup I could feel the moisture in the air and I wondered how this might affect the quality of my run.

I took off and randomly chose a street to follow. I like to choose my path through the neighborhood in real time rather than map it out ahead of time safety purposes. I don't want anyone noticing that I run past here or there every day at 4:15. Despite the oppressive conditions I pushed somewhat at the beginning to help accelerate my transition from anaerobic to aerobic breathing. I've been thinking a lot about cadence lately and wondering if I could increase my running speed by increasing my steps per minute. Soon I started feeling the heat and hoped the run would go by quickly. When I checked the Garmin I saw that I had only been outside for seven minutes. It seemed longer than that and I could tell that the next 2/3rds of the run would be a slog.

I ran with my Brooks this morning and they were fine so this was a good test of their performance compared with the NB 460's that seem to enable my best paces. There was a lot more activity than yesterday including the first time I saw another person, not a runner, but someone coming home very late. There were three or four cars which is also unusual. One was tossing the NY Times onto people's driveways and the other was tossing Newsday. On my short ride to the train station this morning I counted five runners along the way. I wondered how they were dealing with the heat, humidity and sun. No one was smiling. I ended up running about 22 minutes at 9:19, certainly unworthy of a contribution to the Garmin fund. All the same I was happy to have toughed it out on a brutally warm morning. Every bit helps.