90 degree weather forces most people, including myself, to seek out ice cream and retreat indoors to air-conditioned comfort. The sudden change into extreme heat and high humidity weather has not been an easy transition for our running. We’re about a month into our training since we started our speed workouts with Coach Jake and we’ve been making incredible gains. Click here for the story of our last 5K at the Red Regiment where Derek crushed his personal record! Race day is all about giving everything everything you’ve got, but the record isn’t just won on race day. It’s made in all the weeks of consistent training up to the event.

The funny thing is that running has become such a staple in my life that I look forward to the workouts despite the conditions. It’s no longer considered crazy for us run a hard workout followed by a 20 mile bike ride on the Pumpkinvine trail http://www.pumpkinvine.org/. The heat has become our latest challenge to overcome and we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeves to beat it. First off, I drink lots of water throughout the day to stay hydrated and try to plan out nutritious, substantial meals to sustain our energy.  Also, our fluid for workouts is a lemon-lime nuun tablet that dissolves in water and replenishes electrolytes without the sugar content of Gatorade.

The next trick is rearranging our schedules to run after 8 pm when it has cooled off instead of training right after work. We’re also big advocates of sunscreen and make sure that we’re covered 30 minutes before exercising.

At our Monday night group run with Two Rivers Running Club this week, Derek and I brought ice water, Gatorade, and bananas for our friends. We will be making this a tradition for our summer runs since it’s still pretty warm in the late afternoon. (Photo credit: Jenn Davis)

On Tuesday, we stopped by Riverview Elementary to see our running friend, Ed Fruitag, play with his softball team before our speed workout. We ran our long runs with Ed leading up to the Gazelle Girls Half Marathon in April. He’s been training for his first marathon at the Sunburst on June 4th.

Ed had a double-header that night so we watched the first game until it cooled off and then ran 40 minutes around the ball park during the second game. I had a 10 minute warm up before 10 minutes at an 8:30 average pace and 10 minutes at an 8:10 pace followed by a 10 minute cool down. Every time I circled the diamond a softball fan would cheer us on, “you’re really far ahead of the other runners!”

This Saturday we will be running our long run with Ed and my brother Steve who is in town for my sister Holly’s high school graduation. I’m running a 10 mile negative split with the first half at 50:45 and the last half sub 50 minutes.  We plan to meet at 6:30 am for cooler temps and to get Ed ready for running his marathon at 6:30 am next week. I actually miss the 60 degree weather for running, but I know that we can beat the heat this summer!