Do you know the way to San Jose

105

That was the high temperature in Fort Worth today, though some readings were at 106.

Mornings, when I run? Low 80s.

That's right. I won't likely see a day that hits 79 or cooler until, maybe, late August, or early September.

For some northern California bloggers, you'll be lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective) if your high is 79.

I'd give anything for a 60-something degree Texas morning.

Guess I'll have to wait until November for that.

Here is my schedule this week for Week 7 of my Lukes Locker Marathon training:

Monday: 60 minutes or hard cross train
Tuesday: 45 minutes
Wednesday: 60 minutes (15 easy 25 faster 20 easy)
Thursday: 60 minutes
Friday: off
Saturday: 12 miles plus four hill repeats

This adds up to about a 38-mile week for me.

Uhhhh, maybe I should stay at the bar

Just getting in from the going away party of a former co-worker. We sat outside on the patio at a bar called 8.0s in downtown Fort Worth. Lots of young people. Lots of people sucking face. But the thing that got me the most is the heat: It's 11:26 p.m. on a Friday night and its still 90 degrees outside.

90 degrees in the dark, mind you.

In one week, I'm scheduled to run the El Scorcho race, a 25k (15.5 miles) race at midnight. And if its 90 degrees now, I'm sure it will be 90 degrees next week.

What was I thinking?

I can't run 15.5 miles in this shit, can I?

Shit.

Feeling good on a 10-mile run

I am about to start Week 2 of my marathon training with the Luke's Locker Fit program. Week 1 ended with a 6 mile run on Saturday (1 mile warm-up, 4 miles at an 8:00 mile pace, then a 1 mile cool-down).

It left me with 30.89 miles for the week. That put me about 8 miles ahead of what the program is calling for. Like I wrote in an earlier post, I can handle 30 miles a week without my body breaking down. So I'll just stay put until the program catches up.

This morning (Sunday), it was unseasonably cool, like 70 degrees when I began my run at 7 a.m. My plan was to do 8 miles and keep my heart rate under 80 percent maximum.

I did 10 miles. Total time: 1:26:36 for a breezy pace of 8:39 minutes per mile.

My average heart rate for the entire run was 77 percent, though it soared over 80 percent on several occasions _ i.e. on some hills and at the end when the temperature had soared to 80 degrees.

Thanks to the magic of Garmin and SportTracks software, I know that my heart rate was under 80 percent max for exactly 1:22:53, or 96 percent of the run. That's some good base building. What helped is that I stopped at my car for ice cold water and a swig of Gatorade at the 5-mile mark. I never felt too thirsty, though my legs were a little tired from the mini tempo run I did Saturday.

Anyway, here are the splits, complete with heart rate info for those of you who are as geeky about Garmin as I am.

Mile.......time..........%Avg HR.........%Max HR
1..........9:15............68...................74
2..........8:29............75...................76
3..........8:21............77...................78
4..........8:25............78...................81
5..........8:34............79...................80
6. ........8:43............76...................80
7..........8:36............78...................79
8..........8:40............77...................79
9..........8:38............79...................80
10........8:54............80...................81

Obviously, I've got a lot more work to do before I'm ready to run the marathon. See how my heart rate climbed so much. If I had to run another 5 miles, I would have had water after mile 10, and it would have been interesting to see how much longer I could have kept my pace under a 9 minute mile AND my heart rate around 80 percent.

It’s getting hot, and I’m getting slow

No matter how much I lay off the wine the night before, no matter how much I hydrate during, I have found no magic remedy to run in the heat.

A lot of runners have ideas about it, like those over at the Runners Lounge who are participating in discussions about running in the heat. Lately, the scientists over at the Science of Sport blog have shed some interesting insight into, well, the science of running in the heat.

They are using a lot of big words and heavy terminology, but basically, what they are saying is this: Your body anticipates how good you feel, how long you are running, how fast you are running, and how hot it is outside and automatically helps you control your pace in either a race or a training run.

And, the scientist say, this all happens before you’ve run very far. Something about your brain taking all of this information and activating enough muscle fiber for you to do your workout.

And because this happens before you’ve run 1 mile, your slow pace has to do with -- get this -- your body’s anticipatory regulation.

In other words, your body knows when you’ll start to feel like shit before you start feeling like shit and it helps you slow your pace so you can do your entire workout.

People who get heat strokes ignore their bodies’ cues and keep going harder and harder and longer and longer distances, or so the scientists say.

Anyway, the only way to get better at running in the heat is to run in the heat, say the experts, and I believe them. During my 6- and 7-mile tempo runs in the cool mornings of March and April, I could easily run under 8-minute miles. This month, especially the last two weeks, it has been 70 to 75 degrees in the mornings, and I’ve had to slow down to 8:30, sometimes 9:00 miles to finish.

And I know it’s going to get worse before it gets better. If you run into me on the Trinity Trials in the July or August, I’ll be shuffling along on long runs at a 10:30 or 11:00 mile clip.

My advice: Run slow, hydrate (but not too much), and don't be too proud to walk some.