Humidity in Houston
Posted by Admin on May 19, 2010 in Training
I was in Houston last weekend (a four day stay actually) to meet Roya’s family and though tempted to compete in the Silverlake Sprint Triathlon, I decided against it for a few reasons. It would have cost me $100 per flight to ship my bike plus the $75 entry fee, all for a race that would have taken me about an hour. That’s too rich for my blood. More importantly though, I realized that I haven’t done enough long runs in recent weeks in advance of the half-Ironman I’ll be racing on June 13th. So, I passed on the race and decided to just run.
In the days preceding our trip, I conveyed my plan to Roya who explained that her parents’ area probably wasn’t ideal for a long run, but with plans to visit one of her best friends a few miles away who lives in a beautiful area, I still had a shot at finding a good route. I visited one my favorite run/bike planning sites called mapmyride.com and I mapped an out-and-back course of 12 miles. My plan was to run the 12 on Saturday, then do speedwork over the course of an hour on Monday. I also planned on swimming on Sunday and found that the University of Houston featured a good pool and Sunday morning hours. Planning component, check!
Once in Houston, I was consumed by amazing Persian hospitality which, as many have learned, means extreme politeness to the point of insanity. At dinner, it was almost as if I was being rude by refusing my third huge portion of food. Granted, it was beyond delicious and I wished that my gullet was bigger, but I already ate a ton and couldn’t believe how full I was able to get. Even when I said no to pecan pie for dessert, I was given apple pie with ice cream. Beautiful people with the warmest hearts, but pushy with the food! I was worried how I’d be able to run the next day!
Come Saturday, Roya and I headed to her friend’s house to say hello and meet her new baby. After a little while, I got dressed for the run and bid adieu. It was hot, probably in the mid 80s, and the humidity felt like 95%. Turns out it was 71% humidity but seriously, it felt like I was in Miami in August. It was absolutely brutal. I carried a fuel belt but figured that I wouldn’t need more than two bottles. I also forgot to bring Endurolytes which, for those who don’t know, are essentially salt tablets with magnesium and potassium to help replenish the salt content that is lost through sweating and not replaced with plain water.
So, I plodded along and found it hard initially to control my pace. I was running at a 7:30 pace, or so I felt, but I didn’t want to. Finally, at around mile 3, I was able to calm down and settle into a reasonable pace. At the 30 minute mark, I found that my shirt was incredibly bothersome, so I shed it and managed to stuff it into one of the bottle holsters on my fuel belt. It was heavy from sweat, so it bounced with each step, but I eventually found a spot for it that jived with my gait.
Once that was settled, I realized that I wasn’t. I was fading fast in the unshaded, sunny, flat, and windless road. Aside from good tunes on the iPod, there was little to distract me from how bad I began to feel. I decided that regardless of pace, I’d run to the 50 minute mark, then make a u-turn and head back. I had to stop four times on the way back to take part of a gel and lower my heart rate. For long stretches, my heart rate was north of 166 which is in my “red zone”; that is, it exceeded my lactate threshold. I’m not opposed to running in the red zone in training so long as it’s done so strategically for specific intervals and the like. This time however, my heart rate correlated with me running at a 7:15 pace when in fact, I was around 8:20. See, my body was dedicating so much energy to cooling off (e.g. sweating) that it affected my respiratory system and metabolic function. My legs felt great; the rest of me? Not so much.
On the way to the turn-around point, I had been sure to register how long it had taken me to get to certain points along the way which essentially created bookmarks on the course. On the way back, those were so valuable since I knew that I only had 13 minutes to get to this point, and 9 minutes to the next point, etc. When I finally made it back to my starting point at Roya’s friend’s house, I hunched over to bring the ridiculous heart rate back down and it was at that moment that Roya stepped out of her friend’s house with shoes on, keys in hand, and plans to drive the route looking for me. I kinda figured that she would; she’s great like that. She also asked if I had been there a while since it looked like I jumped into a pond to cool off. I said no; this is sweat baby. It was all sweat, but subtract the “baby” part as if to suggest that any of it could be considered sexy; I was an abhorrent mess of secreted fluids. Yuck.
Normally, I burn 950 calories an hour when I run. On Saturday, that ramped up to 1,100 per hour. Naturally, I couldn’t want to get back to Roya’s house to eat! I only wondered if they’d be willing to feed me…
I bailed on the swim Sunday morning. Too much late night fun with the family made for a late bedtime. I did make it out to run Monday morning though. Roya came into wake me at 6:45 since she knew that it would be so much cooler then. I snoozed and dawdled and didn’t get out until just before 8 a.m. She was right; though 8 felt early to me, the weather didn’t share the feeling and presented me with heat, humidity, and zero wind. Had I left at 7 a.m., it likely would have been better for me weather-wise.
My pre-Houston plan was to do speedwork but I bailed on it and decided to make it a recovery run. At first, I thought running 20 minutes out and back would be good, but I eventually extended it to 24 minutes in each direction so that I’d be close to 6 miles in total. As it turns out, I ran 5.7 in 46:30 minutes (including a 1:30 minute negative split) and generally felt okay. It was shady on the way out since the sun was still somewhat low on the horizon, but the return trip eliminated any previous shade. Naturally, I suffered a bit more, but still managed to run a few intervals at race pace.
So, that was 18 miles in two days in disgusting weather. As I’ve often said before, humidity and heat are kryptonite to my body. I just can’t seem to perform. Bring me freezing cold weather and I can do well, but Houston’s weather? Not well. The half-Ironman in June will be held in Maryland, and if my memory serves me well, when I did it 2007, the weather was fairly dry and temperate (maybe in the low 70s). The big deal at this race is wind. I was lucky that in 2007, the winds were calm but one never knows with this course. I’ll bring my disc wheel but only consider it on the morning of the race if it seems that the winds will be nominal.
The rest of the next three weeks will be all about this next race (FYI, called Eagleman). I’ll be training with the team this Saturday doing 60 miles of cycling and 4 miles of running, then doing 14.6 miles of running the next day on my own in Central Park. The following weekend (Memorial Day weekend), I plan on similar distances and efforts. I’ll begin to taper thereafter and get the body well-rested for the next couple of weeks with the hope that I’ll have a banner day on June 13th. Lots to say about Eagleman and the unfinished business I have there, but that’ll be for another post.
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