Wow. Had we known we'd be marathon training during the hottest summer ever on record, we might have thought twice about entering the race! But we didn't, and we did, and so here we are.
Distance Runs: We had a 15 mile run scheduled for two weeks ago. The weather has made it so hard to fit in. When it's 90+ and super humid, it is just so hard. So we looked at the weather and planned to do our run on a Saturday. The weather was supposed to be cooler and not so humid. We started around 8:00, and it wasn't too humid, but it did feel hot in the sun. We did a downtown run, starting, as usualy, at Sawyer Point. We went over the bridge to KY, ran a bit thru KY and then took another bridge back to Cincinnati. After running a bit toward the Eden Park Hill, Julie started to feel lightheaded and needed to sit down. We talked about not finishing up the run and even started to walk back to my car, but then Julie changed her mind and we decided we'd try to get the mileage in, even if we had to do some walking. And walk we did. Lots of walking and some running, but we managed to finish by 11:10 (started around 8:10). We enjoyed our trip down MLK Blvd and enjoyed the friendly people who all wanted to say hello to us. Even the women who commented that she had seen us the day before. We were no where near that area the day before...but as Julie said, "we all look alike." :)
Our route took us by the new Washington Park and we did a detour through it. It's really lovely, and I hope lots of people get to enjoy it. We especially liked the water fountains that cooled us off.
So that takes us to this week. Wednesday looked like the best weather day to run our long run, but since we had just done 15 on Saturday, I was a bit worried about tackling 16 just 4 days later. However, we decided that since we walked so much of our Saturday run, we could do it. It was a hard run, and we were both exhausted afterwards, but we did it, and in good time. (About 11-minute miles, including two bathroom stops and a little walking...though not much :)
I was tired and a little sore afterwards. Also wore the wrong type of shirt and had horrible red welts on my arms from chafing. OW!
We decided to do hill training in Evendale on Friday. I both love and hate hill training. The Evendale hill is about .75 mile long and is a pretty tough hill. It's pretty steep in a few different places, and by the time we get to our stopping point, we have had a workout. But then...we get to jog downhill. It's lovely. Just lovely. But we get to the bottom, have a few sips of water, and then have to go back up it again...and again. We did it four times, so ran a total uphill of about 3 miles and total mileage of 6 miles. I know we will be thankful for this workout come October.
I guess that's it for now. It's been tough, but I know we will get through this. Running in San Francisco should seem like a breeze after this summer, as long as we can get our long miles in. No change in weather insight...so wish us luck!
P.S. We both booked our airline tickets this week, so are super excited! Julie gets to visit her mom for a few days afterward, and I am going down to LA with Cyndi to visit with friends there!!! YAY!!
