Oh, Mother Nature

I never thought I would have such a strong love/hate relationship with the weather. Sure, we all have a certain type of weather that we dislike and a certain type that we enjoy, but mine has become even stronger since I began training. The type of weather I love and the type of weather I hate have almost become opposite too, when it comes to running as opposed to any other time.

Normally, my favorite type of weather would be a sunny, breezy day, not a cloud in the sky, and in the upper 70's or lower 80's. Not when it comes to running though. My ideal running weather would be low 50's, little to no wind, and overcast. The warmer it is, the harder it is for me to run.

This weather talk brings me to my long run this past week. First of all, I have to point out that this was the first official week of the Novice Marathon Training Schedule by Hal Higdon. The Novice Supreme Schedule that I've been following is actually a combination of the marathon training and a spring training schedule. So I have now entered the marathon training portion. Woohoo!! Ok, back on track. (This is what I get for waiting too long to post. My brain is all over the place...). This week and last week were identical in schedules. Both long runs were 6 miles, and I completed the 6 mile long run last week with no problem, so I figured this week would be the same.

Wrong. Last Saturday, I got up early before it got warm out. I had a nice, crisp morning to run. This past weekend looked like it would be the same. Friday night I did my usual night-before-a-run-stalking of the hour-by-hour forecast on weather.com to see when it would get too warm to run. It looked like it was going to be below 70 until about 7am, and then would get warmer from there. Perfect. I could do my 6am run with a nice cloud cover, and cool air. Until I actually went outside Saturday morning. And it was almost 70 already. And the humidity was about 1000%. (Dad, if you're reading this, yes, I realize that's not actually possible) It felt like I was in a jungle. Not ideal.

Well, I toughed it out anyway, but it was a rough run. I may as well have been wearing a plastic jumpsuit because there was absolutely no evaporation going on. I was actually thankful that I had already completed 6 miles the week before so I knew that my terrible experience wasn't because 6 miles was too much to handle, it was due to Mother Nature. And the kicker of the whole thing? That temperature that was supposed to climb after 7am... actually ended up dropping. About an hour after my run, it was about 5 degrees cooler and not nearly as humid. Curse you, weatherman!

Miles this week: 15 miles
Weeks of training finished: 13 weeks
Total miles of training: 147 miles