Tropical Run

I didn't really intend to write successive posts regarding polar opposites in conditions. It just turned out that way.

I was thinking about the run in Columbia a couple of years ago on this same weekend. The weather was deceptively cool, and the humidity was deceptively humid. That's how today turned out, too. Only without the early fog.

If the run a couple of days ago was like running in the desert, today was like running in a rain forest. And to start off, the weather forecast was dead wrong. Last night it told me there would be cloud cover until about 10 a.m. This morning there wasn't a cloud in the sky. And constant sunlight makes extended running a challenge.

And the humidity was crazy high. When I returned home it was at 60%. That might not seem high, but it is when you're running and the temperature is about 80 degrees. True to form I tried to keep the pace slower. And I kept telling myself that this will pay off in about a month when the weather turns cooler and I've built up strength. Or so I hope.

I still feel like I'm not all the way there as far as recovering long-distance strength after slacking off for much of the summer. My guess is that it's a combination of that as well as the extreme weather taking its toll. Nobody is going to run well in weather like this. Today's 10-miler was a building block for continuing to increase the weekly long run. It didn't have to be a great run, and it wasn't a horrible run, but it was tough. I'm going to take the glass half-full viewpoint and use it as a springboard for upcoming runs, mixed metaphors aside.