Training’s important, yeah? That’s the only way to get better at anything you do. It’s why I’ve been putting in so much time on the road over the past few years. Of course, if I compare my running abilities now with how I was then, of course I’m a lot better these days. Duh. There are still things though that don’t seem to get easier. No matter how mentally prepared I am to do a particular distance, if the weather conditions don’t cooperate I’m going to have trouble. There’s no shame in it, but it’s something I have to be aware of.
This morning I had a 32 kilometres run scheduled. I was mentally psyching myself up for it since the day before. I knew that such a run would likely take me around 4 to 4.5 hours at a slow speed. I wasn’t intending to go fast at all because I wasn’t sure how my body would react to tackling such a long distance. There was a light breeze going, and the sky was overcast. I thought these were great conditions. It wasn’t until an experienced veteran commented on the humidity level that I became worried. How could I not notice? It really was gross. I didn’t want to let that stop me though. By the 7K mark my shirt was already soaked with sweat. It was so water-logged that my shorts became wet as well. Not pleasant. Now, as much as I label myself as a particularly sweaty person, even that’s pretty ridiculous for me.
I kept going as best I could. I was starting to really feel heavy fatigue by 23K. Along the way there’s a long up hill portion. I pushed through it, but from that point I was wiped out. At 27K I basically hit the wall. It’s such an odd experience. No matter how much I wanted to move my legs, I just could not maintain a run. I was mentally telling myself that I could do it, and that the discomfort can be ignored. My legs begged to differ. Even as much as I wanted to move forward, I kept reverting to a walk. There were a few moments where I felt like I’d just vomit if I tried to push any more. Man, mentally I was feeling bad. On the way back, things were really stop and go. I did make it back, but I really had absolutely nothing left in the tank.
It took me a few moments and some pep talks from the store staff to help put things into perspective. At the very least, I can say that I really pushed my body to its physical limit. With better weather I’m sure I would have made it back without feeling so gross. Yeah, I’m not happy, but when Mother Nature chooses such conditions there’s nothing you can really do. This is one of the aspects of summer running that people don’t often consider. It’s entirely why I prefer winter running to summer running.
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