It’s almost the end of the day and I’m still dealing with the remnants of a post-run headache that’s been dogging me since about 2 p.m. Yeah, I’ve written about those headaches a couple of times and yet I haven’t done much to try to figure out how combat them. They still persist. Earlier today I felt like I had a metallic spike driven through my head going from temple to temple. How pleasant! I actually posted a question to my Twitter followers regarding ideas on how to stave off these headaches besides Tylenol and sleep. It was suggested that on the night before I have to work harder on achieving a better level of hydration. Well duh. God knows why I’m not doing that, you know? Next Saturday I’ll load up on water and eLoad. We’ll see how I feel on Sunday morning.

There was another issue this morning that kind of compounded all of these issues. I think I’m under-trained for this point in the training for the half-marathon. Today we were scheduled for 12K. That’s all great, I mean I’ve done that distance so many times before. And it’s not like it’s 16K or 18K which require a good amount of effort. No…what’s 12? That’s how I felt going in. It’s too bad that I didn’t take into account the fact that I haven’t been doing the required long runs lately. I don’t think it’s that I’ve been lazy. It’s just that I’ve been so focused on my LTR class that any more running after that just didn’t seem like something I had time for. Generally, as a rule of thumb, one should not increase weekly mileage by more than 10% a week in order to prevent injury. Last week, on Sunday I ran 5.5K with the class. As you can see, the jump was not 10% at all. The result? Well, I didn’t get injured, but I certainly had a rough time during the run.

The route for this morning was particularly hilly. There’s this one road along the way that had several uphill approaches. We took several of them. The heat was particularly strong due to the humidity. My shirt was completely soaked. I was feeling fine until about midway. That’s when I was really starting to feel the effects of the heat. Every time I stopped for a light I actually felt a little off-balance. I swear, if I wasn’t conscious about my condition I would have probably tipped over. That’s how bad it was. In the last three kilometres, I just ran out of gas. I was kind of embarrassed. This should not have been an issue! I kept on trying to force it, but every few hundred metres I reverted back to walking for a bit. In the last kilometre I thought “screw it” and just walked it in. Someone asked me how I’d rate my run, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. I told her that it was between a 2 and 3–maybe 2.2. Brutal!

So, all right, I have to acknowledge the fact that yes, we are now in the summer running season. On these long runs I have to wear a tank because a t-shirt is just too hot. I should search for my headbands again. I have to acknowledge that these runs will be tougher than they were during the winter and spring seasons. I need to catch up on my training. Next week’s run will be 14K, which shouldn’t be so bad. Most of all, I need to be better prepared. I need to bring more water than I need, and gels even if I think I might not need them. I’m determined not to have two crappy Sunday runs in a row.