Double Pimmit

I went to see Bela Fleck and Chick Corea at Wolftrap last night with Ben Semmes, who's interning down here for the summer. The weather was perfect- just 30 minutes after I ran in 94 degrees, a sudden storm came through, relieving so much of the heat. I wish I had been able to wait to run. Regardless, I felt like I had reached a point where I was able to stand the heat.

I woke up at 3 am Wednesday after having an absolutely ridiculous dream about a hostage situation involving my friends in Yemen, and while I was up I checked the temperature at it was 70 degrees with 97 percent (!) humidity. There was no way this was going to be better at 6, so I slept in and planned to run when it was hot in the evening.

About 16 hours later, it was 94 degrees and I headed out with a bottle of ice. I got moving pretty quickly, about 7:00 pace, and dropped the bottle off a little more than a mile into the loop, a new one I called the Double Pimmit, because it covers two parts of Pimmit Road, bisected by Route 7. I managed to get down to the 5:50s for the next seven miles so by the time I got back to the bottle and carried it and its now-cold water to mile 8, I had averaged 6:00 pace for the first eight. I took some time to refill and recover and just pour some chilled water on my neck, then back at it. Six minute pace for a little more than four miles to finish in 1:22 for 13.1, astoundingly faster than my Pittsburgh half marathon time that I could have run another mile and still been faster. That's all irrelevant because I jogged so much of Pittsburgh, but it still a nice benchmark.

Elyse suggested running a 5k next Friday night in Alexandria, so I figured why not. Now I know I can handle running in the heat better than ever before. The big tests will be tomorrow's 3x2 mile workout and Saturday's 20 miler.

Throughout the run I had Kenny Loggins' Mr. Night in my head, and the corresponding scene from Caddyshack. It helped. Who needs a music player?