The Wet And Hot Week That Was!

   We spent Monday to Friday of this past week at my mother-in-law's trailer, near Port Franks, Ontario, right near the shore of Lake Huron.
   As it was across most of North America, the heat was damp and extremely oppressive and we tried to spend as much time as possible either in the air conditioned trailer or at nearby beaches.
   I knew that in spite of the weather I wanted to get out and run on some kind of a regular basis while I was there. I'd just started doing hill repeats a couple of days ago and I knew that I wanted to work on of those babies in as well as a basic 5k run.
   As luck would have it, my mother-in-law's trailer is at the top of a pretty steep hill so it only made sense to use the hill for a session of repeats. The road leading to the trailer park is long, flat and tree-lined so it seemed tailor-made for the longer run.

Blessedly flat and shady run.

   I did the run Tuesday morning. It was about 85 degrees with a hundred percent humidity when I set out running. It had been a while since I'd actually been able to complete a 5k without stopping so I decided to make this particular run an SSD (short slow distance). The run went well, I had taken water with me and there was plenty of shade along the way. And you know what? It was flat! In thinking about it afterward, it occurred to me that in my whole year of running I have never run a 5k distance that was flat. Where I live in the west end of London it is very difficult to travel 5k in any particular direction without running into a hill of one kind or another and, lately, I've been purposely trying to incorporate extra ones. So it was kinda nice to run on flat ground for a change! I wore my Garmin for the mileage more than for the time as all I really wanted to do was complete the run.
   I saved the hill repeat for Thursday morning. From the bottom of the hill to the top was conveniently a hundred meters. This was the same distance I had started with last week so it was kind of nice to be able to compare.
   It was a killer. It was perhaps the same distance but it was much steeper than the hill I'd previously done. Because it ended right at our trailer, I had Doralyn videotape my first

 run. Now, when I ran up the hill the first time I thought I was going pretty damn fast, little legs motoring and everything. Then I saw the video. Huge disappointment! I looked like some old geezer chasing his paper plate across the lawn at the retirement home's annual picnic, and not the amazing athlete I know myself to be. The scary part is that I was running way faster than on a normal run (I can't even imagine what one of those looks like on video...) After much technical manoeuvering, I was finally able to post that video here. Please watch at your own discretion!  
   By the way, by the end of the fifth hill repeat I was toast and couldn't possibly imagine doing six of them, which is next on the agenda. Good news is I won't be seeing that hill anytime soon again!
   So that was the week that was, running-wise. It does seem strange to be doing all this running and not have a race goal in mind so I do have my eyes on a 5k road race coming up in London at the end of the summer and by this time next week will hopefully have signed up for it.
   In the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!