115 in the Shade

Saturday- 6 miles- 48min
Sunday- AM- 2 miles walk, PM 6 miles -47min

Holy crap it is time to leave Egypt! Yesterday was unbelievable hot. Hottest of 2007. 115 in the shade and sheltered from the furnace wind. In the sun....get ready... 137!!!!!!!!! The best way to describe it is to go open your oven after cooking a turkey for a few hours and let the heat wave roll out and singe your eyes......got that feeling. That is what it felt like. Some said hair-dryer hot. I disagree. It was worse than that.

I went running at 5pm when it had cooled down to 108 in the shade for the sole purpose of running in weather just that hot. I want to be able to tell my grand kids about what HOT really is. So now I have run in temps ranging from negative 20 degrees in Alfred, NY in 1994, to the 120 here in the Sinai. It was not pleasant and the water in my water bottle went from refrigerator cold to BLAH hot cocoa hot by the 3rd mile.

In other news congrats to Fellow Montrail teammate, VHTRC, Virginian, and blogger Bryon Powell on his 2nd place at the Laurel Highlands 70 miler! The guy is awesome and proved what I am also trying to prove......Once you have established an ultrarunner base. And have put in a few LONG long runs, and are able to have proper caloric intake during the race. The most important thing to racing ultra races well is speed. Meaning.... weekly runs where you run "fast"- which is relative to everyone. I think it had been 8 weeks since he put in a run longer than 26.

Vermont will be similar for me.

Also after listening to the body (which was achy and letting me know) I am not going to go to a 4 day schedule of Long/easy/tempo/easy. I am going to stay with what has been working for me:

1-Long- tempo
2-Easy-recovery
3-Moderate

No need to fix what ain't broken.