Happy Solstice, everyone! For once the longest day is sunny, and warm. And very, very muggy. I didn’t realise this until I started my intervals. 8 sets of 400m repeats at 8:35 – 8:50 pace with 90 second recoveries in between. I run my intervals on a straight stretch of lane about a mile away from the village, which means I have a mile warm up and cool down. Perfect! Unfortunately this lane has a very slight slope on it, which means my outward (odd-numbered) repeats are easier than the even (slightly uphill) repeats. This is never normally a problem, I just need to be aware that half the repeats will feel easier than the other half, and not beat myself up about it.
So I ran my mile warm-up and stashed my water bottle by a tree, and set off for my first repeat. Slightly downhill, easy. 90 second recovery at a gentle jog, then I turned for the uphill repeat. Oh – not only was it (slightly) uphill but I suddenly was running into a headwind. Where did that come from, and why hadn’t I felt the wind behind me as I ran ‘downhill’?! (Or maybe that was why it had felt easy!) Anyway, enough excuses. All 8 repeats were run, at varying paces. Water bottle was retrieved and I plodded back home. Boy it felt muggy, but I hadn’t realised quite ‘how’ muggy until I uploaded my data to the Garmin Connect website. Apparently it was 100% humidity.
100% Humidity – is that not like running through water?