RTTC #239 Proof of Time Half Marathon Training Week 10

In this episode of Running to the Castle, Dr. Ali walks through a week that got hijacked by a home repair headache and a rough holiday weekend, and shares how she still managed to hit the bare minimum without losing sight of her training goals. 

She breaks down the key difference between a "just finish" goal and a "fast" goal, and how knowing which one is yours should shape what you cut when life gets in the way. 

She also shares real, in-the-moment lessons from her tempo run, progression run, and a heat-adapted long run,including a fueling misstep that's a good reminder for anyone training through summer heat. 

It's an honest look at what a realistic, imperfect training week actually looks like.

Learn more about Stronger. Faster. Finisher. !

Ready to cross the finish line stronger, faster, and prouder at your next runDisney race? 

Get personalized support, smarter training, and strategies designed specifically for slow, back-of-the-pack runners who want to build a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, have time for character photos and energy to enjoy the Disney Parks. Learn more about the Stronger. Faster. Finisher. Program today and be the first to know when doors open!

Free Resources

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  Hi, I'm Dr. Ali
  I've been running for 15+ years and been in the rehab space since 2012 when I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree. I get injury prone runDisney runners across the finish line without feeling broken.

Transcript

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Hey, how's it going? Today I'm talking about Proof of Time Half Marathon Training, Week 10. This is Running to the Castle, a podcast for slow, back-of-the-pack Run Disney runners on a journey to running magical miles. Join me, Dr. Alley, as I share the secrets I've gathered as a runner, doctor of physical therapy, and coach. You'll learn the exact ways I get my clients to the castle strong, have a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, and have time to stop for character photos. Keep listening if your goal is to PR in fun, cross the finish line without feeling broken, and have energy to enjoy the Disney parks. This was one of those weeks. I just did the bare minimum. I didn't get to cross training, I did strength workouts, I did two speed workouts, and I did one long run. This week we were fighting with the landscape company to get them to come back and finish the yard. So we got this material they call chat. You may hear it as DG. It's you've you've seen it if you've been to a park that has um, it looks like dirt, but it's hard. And we got that in our backyard. And you basically have to compact dirt to harden it. And this is something Royal works with regularly in the road construction industry that he's in. So he knew when they did it the first time, it wasn't done right. And the guy who was doing it was like, Yeah, I've I've never done this before. I will compact it, but I've never done it before. And this is what we're gonna do. And they did like super quick passes over it. Even I knew it wasn't right. And so as soon as they had finished it, we were on the phone with our contact at the company, and we were like, this, this is not right. So they had originally quote unquote finished the yard on Monday. And as soon as they were done, we were on the phone. Like, this isn't right. And we sent them a video of what it looked like Tuesday morning because it does take 24 hours for the information, for the dirt to settle and everything to harden. So we sent something within that 24-hour period. And it wouldn't have been completely hard, but it would have been better than what it was. And so sent the called them on Monday. They asked for a video Tuesday morning, sent it Tuesday morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I don't hear anything from them. And I had gotten a bill on Monday because that was the day that they finished. And then I got another bill on Wednesday, and then finally another bill on Friday. And the bill on Friday was different. It was more. And I was like, do not play with me. You can't be serious. I thought they were charging us interest because we hadn't paid when the job was quote unquote finished on Monday. And here I am waiting for somebody to call me back with information about when they're coming back to finish this up. So finally on Friday afternoon, no, excuse me. So I had gotten that bill in the morning and I texted our contact and I was like, who can I talk to about this? We like, we need to get this done, but I also need to talk to somebody about this payment and so on and so forth. And so finally they called me Friday afternoon and they were like, okay, somebody will come out tomorrow and they'll fix it. And we're like, well, we're not available tomorrow because it was gonna be Saturday and we had a day planned. And so they're like, okay, well, we'll push it to Monday. So then Saturday at like nine o'clock at night, I get a text message from the guy actually doing the work and was like, Hey, can I come tomorrow to fix it? And we're like, sure. Cause we were gonna be home on Sunday. So they did and they spent a long time fixing it. And so finally it was fixed. So that's by the end of the week. So that is Sunday, July 12th. Okay. So that's the end of my workout week. But all week I had been taking up time with calling these people and figuring out how we're gonna get this done. So I got the bare minimum done. And remember, if you're getting the bare minimum done, that's fine because that's the bare minimum. You're not doing under that. You can still cross the finish line or have some semblance of potential for your goal. Okay. You can't do absolutely nothing every week. Sometimes absolutely nothing is going to happen. That is just the way it is sometimes. That's okay. But if you can do the bare minimum. And remember, when you're doing the bare minimum, when you're following one of my training plans, I recommend two speed workouts, two cross training days, and one long run each week. If you can do two strength training days and then have two rest days. So that adds up to nine activities. I recommend strength exercises be on the same day that you do speed workouts or on the same day that you do cross training. It makes it easier and it gives your whole, your body time to rest, gives you a whole rest day. When you're doing the bare minimum, you need to ask yourself, what is my priority? Is my priority finishing? Just making it, getting across the finish line ahead of the balloon ladies, versus, do I have a time-based goal? Now, I've had runners in the past couple of weeks tell me, well, I have both. I just want to finish, but I have to be faster than the balloon ladies. So let me clarify. When I say you just want to finish, that is meaning you want to finish ahead of the balloon ladies. But that's not necessarily a time goal. Because depending on where you are situated in the corrals, you could take four hours and 15 minutes for a half marathon when balloon ladies are taking three and a half hours. Because if you're far enough ahead, by the grace of the Run Disney gods, if you start in Corral B for some reason, whether you have, you know, Club Run Disney membership or that's just where your bib landed for who knows why, you could just finish and have it take you four hours and 15 minutes. So, and that's ahead of the balloon, ladies. So when I talk about having a priority being just finishing versus I want to get faster, I have a time-based or a speed-based goal, those are different. When you're talking about I just want to finish, that is finishing ahead of the balloon ladies. So it does take into account being ahead of the balloon ladies, but it doesn't necessarily mean being faster than the balloon ladies, because you could be in a different corral. Now, many runners I work with will be at balloon lady pace and they just want to finish. If you have the goal of I just want to finish this race, that's a great goal. And I do recommend somebody who's never done a specific race distance before, or they haven't finished that race distance before, that that be their goal. Just finish, whether I have to walk, crawl, or if I can run. I just want to finish in parentheses ahead of the balloon, ladies. Somebody having a time-based goal or a speed-based goal, that's somebody who has finished that race distance. It's not, it may not be, you know, having done 10 of them. Maybe you've just done one. That's okay because you have finished. Now you can move on to a speed-based or a time-based goal. And when you are needing to adjust your training schedule and thinking, okay, I just need to do the bare minimum. Think about which is your goal. Is it finishing or is it fast? Right. I'll just use those terms. So finishing means I just want to finish parentheses ahead of the balloon, ladies. Fast is I want to have a specific finish time. I want to finish in two and a half hours for a half marathon, or I want to maintain a 10 minute per mile average pace, something like that. If you're saying those things, that's a fast goal. If you're saying things like, I just need to complete the distance, that's a finishing goal. When you have those goals, you have to, you have to use those to set your priorities. If finishing is the goal, instead of doing speed workouts that week, you want to do spend time on cross-training or easy runs. So if this week were happening and I could only get three workouts done for cardio workouts, I would do one long run. Maybe I would do a cross training and then one 45-minute easy run. So no speed workouts. If I have a fast goal, which I do, and so this is relevant to me, this week I did the bare minimum. So I made sure to do two speed workouts because I have a fast goal. And in order to get fast and be fast, I need to practice fast. That's speed workouts. And then I also did my long run. No week is going to be perfect for anybody, no matter how elite they are, no matter how experienced they are, no matter how good their highlight reel on Instagram looks, I guarantee you that everybody that you're watching, everybody else that you're watching also has weeks where they don't do it all. It's not perfect. And it doesn't have to be perfect. Use what you can, do what you can with the resources and in the season you're in. If you're in a season where you have kids that need to go to all sorts of different activities, or you are in a season where your blood pressure is fluctuating because you have another diagnosis in the background, or you're feeling ill and fatigued all of the time. Do what you can with what you can, right? It may be that you originally had a fast goal, and depending on the season you're in, maybe it needs to become a just finish goal. And that's okay because there's next year, there's the next race, right? So this week was the bare minimum. So let's go back to the beginning of the week. I did my speed workout on Tuesday. I took a rest day on Monday because over the weekend was 4th of July, and we had originally planned to go out of town to get away from the fireworks. That didn't happen. So we stayed in town and Levi was a wreck. One night we actually drove all the way down to Royal's office to A, be in the car. Levi loves the car, but he still didn't do well because it is just driving down 95. You just see all of the fireworks. You could see the fireworks on the strip, you could see the fireworks being lit off by the people that aren't supposed to be lighting them off. Levi was in the floorboard. He was trying to get under Royal's seat because Levi sits in the back. Royal's in the front passenger seat, and Levi is trying to get under there. We went down to the office, hung out there for a little while because it's a commercial area. So it's it's fewer people. I'm not gonna say that it was no people lighting off fireworks, but it's at least fewer. And it it's a little more, it's not really soundproof, but we could be inside deeper, away from the walls. So that was fine, but it was just a long weekend of a lot of late nights, a lot of comforting Levi, a lot of just not getting much sleep. And so Monday morning, we we decided Levi and I were gonna sleep in. So Monday became a rest day for me instead of a normal speed workout. So that meant Tuesday I did my speed workout and I did 10K level three race pace tempo run. And it went well. On my training schedule, I actually have the inner intervals wrong since I changed to two minute, one minute for my speed workout. So I actually need to adjust that on all of the training plans I have to adjust if you do a long run at one interval and your speed workouts at another interval to accommodate it specifically for this tempo run because I do encourage you that you may run a different interval for your race day. And that's okay because the faster you go during your running interval, you may not be able to do that for very long. Or you may need to adjust how long your walk interval is or how fast your walk interval is. And typically, when you run shorter amounts, you actually will run faster. So it seems a little counterintuitive. And I've talked about this on a podcast episode before, where should you run more, run longer in your run interval to make yourself go faster? And that may not work. Because if you are running longer, that means if you are running faster, you need to do that longer. And typically what happens is we run fast for a short amount of time. We see it in Olympians when they're sprinting, right? The 100 meter dash, the 400 meter. Those paces are much, much, much faster than somebody who's running a marathon because they have to sustain that pace for either a short amount of time for that 100 meter or 400 meter, whatever the person's specialty is, versus the marathon. So one thing that I find is runners will say, Well, I can run this fast in a 60-60 run-walk interval. In order to go faster without changing my pace, I should just double my run interval. And then I run two minutes, walk one minute. Yes, the mass is there. The math is there. However, the pace that you go at 60 seconds, 60 seconds, the 60 second run, 60 second walk, may not be the same pace as what you can do at two minutes running, one minute walking. You're literally doubling the amount of time that you have been running, and you are doubling the amount of time that you are running compared to walking, as opposed to a one-to-one ratio. You're doing a two to one ratio, which will automatically make you more tired. And so, yes, on paper, if you see, okay, well, I can run six miles per hour, these are just random numbers I'm throwing out here. I can run six miles per hour for one minute and then walk at four miles per hour for one minute. Well, that averages out at five miles per hour or 12 minutes per mile, but I want to increase that. Why don't I just double the amount of time that I'm running and I don't have to run any faster? No, but you have to sustain it. And most people, what happens is they can't sustain that same 6.0 miles per hour for two minutes. They can sustain it for one minute. Maybe they can sustain it for a minute 15, but that whole two minutes, they're going to slow down in the beginning, unless they train themselves, which will take at least six months to really be able to train themselves for that fast pace. Now, of course, I'm using six miles per hour as a fast pace for somebody. I should have said that in the beginning. I don't, maybe I did. I don't remember. But typically, what happens is when we double the amount of time we're running, but keep the walk interval the same, we end up slowing down. And I've I've been seeing this with my race pace training. So right now I've been doing three minutes running, one minute walking on my long runs. And that's my easy pace. Easy pace running three minutes, one minute walking. When I tried to do that at race pace, I could not hold it for more than a minute 30 or two minutes. And even as I'm practicing this, two minutes is really pushing my limits. And I'm keeping it there. I did not change it to one minute, one minute, because it is good to push my limits because that's how I get faster, right? It's running with purpose, finding your upper limits and exceeding them. So right now, when I'm doing my tempo run, in the beginning, in the first half of my tempo run, I start looking at the clock at like a minute 30 of running. And I'm like, okay, am I when is the two minutes up? Then as I get further into it, I start looking at it at a minute 15, at a minute, then 45 seconds, then 30 seconds, because I am just that much more tired by reps six, seven, and eight. And it's the longer I'm going for that fast amount of time, I'm ready to be done. And if I were outside, I would naturally start slowing down. So I have changed my race pace to two minutes, one minute. And so I did this particular run on my treadmill at home. It was hot. And I set up my treadmill so that maybe it could be a little bit cooler. Um you know, it was 95 degrees outside when I started. It was probably a little bit cooler in the garage when I started, but I had moved the thermometer to be outside because we were checking the temperature outside to see what we wanted to do sitting-wise, to buy furniture and things like that. So anyway, didn't have a thermometer in there, a thermostat in there. Thermostat, thermometer. I couldn't check the temperature. And I was concerned about getting too hot. So I pulled out all of the stops. I set up my tower fan and I set it up high enough so that it was blowing on my face. I set up the box fan so it was set up high enough so it was blowing on my whole body. Then I had the fan on the treadmill, and I had one of those cooling towels from that you get from Reese Day. Like they were giving them out at springtime surprise. And I had ice water, I had ice in my hydration scratch and liquid IV. I took a sip every single walk break. I was, when I tell you I was pulling out all the stops, I was pulling out all of the stops. Did I get a little too hot? Yes, for sure I did. But it was manageable. And I had complete intentions to walk if I started to get way too hot, but I didn't need to. And this run was a next level up from last week's run. So I did three run pace tempo, three run race pace intervals in a row before I started alternating run, race, pace, run easy pace. Now, of course, I still have my walk intervals in there. So when I say alternating run, race pace, and run easy pace, it wasn't run, race, pace, then immediately run easy pace. It was run, race, pace, walk, run easy pace, walk, run, race, pace, walk, run easy pace, walk. Still doing my run walk intervals. And overall, it went great. I actually felt like I didn't need to do my easy pace intervals at all. And I had the discipline because I started feeling like, oh, I don't actually need these. I should push through. I had the discipline to not do that. I need to experience what this level is like before I level up again. I can't skip and go straight to the next level. So and at the time of recording this, I will talk about the next two weeks, um, which is, you know, glad I didn't do that. Overall, very good. And, you know, going off of like have the discipline to hold back, often I don't feel poorly during a workout. It's later in the day or the next day. Remember my hill workouts from a couple of weeks ago or at this point months ago? I didn't feel poorly during that hill workout. It was later. So I can't, I can't always use that as a gauge, right? Because, you know, I'm not exactly sure why I don't feel poorly immediately. Is it the adrenaline? Is it just the for me, usually a glucose crash? The glucose hasn't crashed yet, right? Because that takes time. So it wouldn't be wise of me to just push through and just because I'm feeling good in the moment, skip the easy pace intervals completely. I have the time to progress slowly. I know I have the time. I planned it that way. I studied the training schedule for going for this 10K and I started an extra three months early so that I could work on my pace for those first three months. I did it on purpose. And then the fourth month, I can work on my pace a little bit, but really by then my pace will be solid and I won't need to try and get faster at that point. I'll have the pace. Fingers crossed, I'll have the pace. And then it will just be smooth sailing from there. So after the tempo run, I had a pack of Ritz peanut butter crackers for mostly carbs, some protein, some fat before I started my strength workout. Last weekend, excuse me, last week I did a speed workout, but I didn't have a snack before my strength workout. And I did, I did fine during my strength workout. But after the strength workout was done, I started feeling nauseous and shaky. Those are my symptoms of when I don't have enough sugar or carbs soon enough. So I made Sure, today have a snack immediately after the run. Nothing too big, something that I know my stomach can handle. I love these Ritz peanut butter crackers. I have them all of the time. So my body is very much used to these. I did a heavy strength day and it was whole body. It was really good. I struggled with some reps and I couldn't finish the last attempt of a few exercises. And that's okay because that means that my heavy weight for those exercises are good for me. I talked about this on another episode where heavy strength days, you should be able to do five to eight reps. And the last few reps should be a struggle. So for some exercises, I could do six reps and I couldn't even start the seventh, or I could do five and could only get halfway through a sixth repetition. So in those instances, for the one where I couldn't complete the full range of motion of that repetition, that repetition doesn't count. It's not five and a half reps. It's five reps because that is the last complete repetition I could do. Could I drop the weight and finish out the set? Sure, I could, but personally, I don't tend to do that as long as I was able to complete the minimum amount in that set, meaning I could do at least five repetitions. And for every exercise, I could do at least five. Okay, we're gonna skip over Wednesday and Thursday because those became rest days. Fast forward to Friday, progression run. I did this run at Planet Fitness. We have one nearby. And with the summer heat, I can't keep doing my runs, whether they're speed or long, in our garage. It took so much to set up that speed workout earlier in the week. And with two hours of running for the long run that I have tomorrow, Royal was like, mm-mm. You gotta look into getting a gym membership. Planet Fitness is only $15 a month. One annual payment and like $5 or less for a sign-up fee. It has a lot of cardio equipment. Not too much on the strength equipment, but the one that I would go to seems pretty quiet. So even though they don't have a ton of strength equipment, there's enough that I shouldn't have to wait around. Like there's enough slash so few people that I shouldn't have to wait around. And I actually used Chat GPT to compare some different um gyms for me. And, you know, it compared a local one, LVAC, it compared EOS, and it compared Planet Fitness. And apparently, now I've never stepped into EOS. I have, I used to be a member at LVAC. It compared and said that there was a lot of strength equipment at those two. And LVAC, there definitely is. And it said for Planet Fitness, there's more cardio equipment. And I do believe that is accurate. Like once stepping into the Planet Fitness, there were so many ellipticals, so many bikes, so many treadmills, so many stair steppers, and then some strength equipment. Definitely a good amount of strength equipment. I'm not talking about like one piece of equipment for each thing, but it wasn't rows upon rows, some of these other gyms are in. And I don't need that. And I will note that they have a circuit style area, which is awesome. If you are part of Planet Fitness and you are thinking about having a well-rounded strength routine, go over to that 30-minute circuit style section. And those exercises hit most major muscle groups. It still lacks on calf, but you can go stand on the step and do calf raises there. And it might not be the ideal situation with the type of equipment that it is, but it's pretty good. And so I've been using it. And they do have rules around using it and everything, but it's pretty good. So anyway, this workout, I ended up just doing a trial for the day. It was $20. And I read somewhere that that $20 could be put towards your enrollment. That was not the case for this one. And it's interesting because it's only $15 a month. The $20 one-day trial, it's 24 hours. So I can use this. I didn't plan on it. I thought it was just like the one sign-in, but I ended up using it the next day. I got I got into the gym before my 24 hours was up. But thinking back to it, I should have just signed up for the month because that would have been $15. And I can cancel at any time. So it would have been cheaper, but I didn't think about that. So the run was good. On the last increase before the peak, I had to start walking a little bit slower than my normal walking pace. And same thing for at the peak. It was honestly getting too hard to press the three and the five, and then the enter button to be 3.5 miles per hour for my walking pace because I was so tired and running so fast. So I just chose 3.3 because I could very quickly hit that button. So the 0.2 mile per hour, not that big of a difference in the long run. It was just easier to click that. And the walk part is the recovery. So, in my opinion, it's more important to be able to continue staying the course with the paces that you're aiming for. Keep hitting those same paces for the speed workouts and recover at whatever pace you need to recover at. So for these progression runs, the walking is a recovery. Recover so that you can then sprint during that next run interval during the progression run. It's just to me, it's just more important to push through those faster paces running than it is to push through the walk. And some runners will say, Well, I also want to get faster with my walk. Okay, you can. And I'll bring out this phrase: you can do it all. You can't do it all at once. Each run has to have its own separate purpose. So the progression run is to be able to improve your running speed and run faster and faster and faster until you hit a peak and then you slow it down. So if you want to walk faster, do a separate workout to walk to work on your walking pace. Do a workout like incline walking at a fast pace or paced walking, where you do your actual run-walk intervals, but you do walk-walk intervals. So you walk at one fast pace and walk at your regular pace and you go back and forth like that. Don't try and work on that in the progression run. Don't try and work on that in the 30, 20, 10. Don't try and work on that in the tempo run. Don't try and work on that in the hill workout. Those are separate goals. And you can't have two in each of them at this stage. Once you have worked on those paces and you feel good about those paces, then instead of increasing your progression run running pace, you try and keep doing those same running paces and keep your walk pace whatever walk pace you want it to be, let's say on race day. But then those you don't have two goals for that run anymore because you've already hit the goals of being able to hit those paces for the progression run. And now you've waited until those are somewhat easy for you. And now it's keeping those paces and keeping the walk pace. And that new workout is working on the walk pace. See how you can change these workouts over time, but not all in the same session. And don't try and work on too many things at one time. Each workout has one specific purpose. Keep going with that one specific purpose for now. Follow one course until success. Focus. F-O-C-U-S. Follow one course until success. Stick with following that one thing in that one workout. Don't try and do two. You can have it all. You can't have it all at once. You can eventually get to it all, just not all at the same time. Don't try and muddy the waters by doing too many things in one workout session. I don't really talk about this a ton, but I will bring this in with strength workouts too. Many runners will tell me, well, I'm just starting out with strength workouts. I'm not very strong. I'm not very fit. Maybe I'm overweight or something like that. And I need to do strength workouts to support my running, or I need to do strength workouts to support my weight loss goal or what have you. And many will say, Well, I only have so much time. So I would like to do, you know, those workouts where you do a squat with a bicep curl and a press, which is basically three exercises in one, which is great. That is a great goal to have to be able to combine all of these movements. However, when you are first starting and you aren't very strong, you aren't very fit and maybe overweight and the movements are challenging. Stick with one movement per exercise. It will take longer. Or if you only have 15 to 30 minutes, maybe you're working out and doing strength training five days a week to hit all major muscle groups. So you do whatever it takes in that 30 minutes on Monday. You do whatever you can in that 30 minutes on Tuesday, and so on and so forth. And once you've practiced all of those individual movements, gotten good at all of those individual movements, now you start combining motions or now you start making them dynamic. Like a very good uh example is a lunge. So many runners come to me and have rolled their ankle or twisted their knee or twisted their back doing lunges. One of my first questions is always tell me about how you do this lunge. And if I ever ask you that question, please do not come back with me. Come back to me with, no, I just do a lunge. There are many different ways to do a lunge. And was it static? Was it moving, like a walking lunge? Was it a reverse lunge? Was it a decline reverse lunge? There are many different ways to do this. So when somebody's first starting with doing a lunge, I recommend wide stance, staggered stance, one foot ahead of the other in a nice wide stance, and then go straight down to the ground. Drive that back knee into the ground and then stand right back up. Do not move your feet. Some runners will do that lunge and then bring their feet together and then step back or step forward to go into the next lunge, and then they bring their feet together again. So it seems like they're static because they're not moving forward, they're not traversing in space, they're not, you know, walking 50 feet, turning around and walking the 50 feet in a lunge, in a walking lunge back, but it's still dynamic because you've moved your foot. You have to replant it every single time. And somebody who has a history of rolling their ankle, twisting their knee, or twisting their back, those are the first places to go during that exercise. So for me, a static lunge is feet planted, static, excuse me, staggered stance, drive that back knee into the ground and then go straight back up. And then drive that knee straight into the ground and then straight back up. That's a static lunge. And then once you're doing done with the five to eight repetitions of that, you switch. If your right foot was in front, now your left foot is in front. And you do all five to eight in a row in that position. Don't move the feet because that is a dynamic version of that exercise. It's more advanced. And for somebody just starting out, more advanced is not the place. You can eventually get there and you can eventually get to combined motions and doing multiple exercises all in one to get the workout done more efficiently and faster. But in the beginning, that's not the time. And so, same thing with the progression run. Keep the progression run as working on those fast paces first. Leave the walk interval to be your recovery time and walk whatever pace that needs to be to actually recover. And that's what I did here. Okay, now this brings us to Saturday. I will tell you on Sunday, I also did a rest day. Okay, so I did this run on the treadmill at Planet Fitness. I made sure to get into Planet Fitness before my 24 hours was up, which is great to know. I'm so glad that that person had told me the day before, like, hey, you'll still have access 24 hours. I did get one of the treadmills under the big ass fan, and forgive me for swearing, but that's literally what it's called. That's the company name, and turned the treadmill fan on full blast, but you have to be right in front of that fan to almost like in the handles to really feel it. So it was hard to stay cool. And I started wondering if there were fans that I could buy. And I asked my stronger faster finisher members, and they were mentioning stroller fans. So, of course, the child free person never would have thought that I could get a fan that could attach to like a stroller. So I'm gonna look into getting those and just see like where we're at. And I am going to join this gym to run on the treadmill in the summer. It's still warm, but not as hot as in my garage gym and not as hot as outside. I I also think that this is going to be my last long, long run. I did not need to do this distance. This distance was 7.41 miles. So training for a 10K, I don't need to be running this far. And I'm doing it because I'm still in my build phase. So if you remember, I talk about once you're in the training phase, once you're actively training for your race, don't go even, don't go up to race distance, let alone beyond race distance. So I'm still in the build phase. So I can go beyond race distance. I still don't have to. So I think moving forward, I'm going to cap it at like 60 or 65 minutes because that's how long my race is going to take me. How long I want my race to take me, right? Because I'm doing a proof of time 10K. That means I want to get faster than one hour, eight minutes. So I'm putting myself at one hour five minutes, give myself some buffer to go beyond the 6.2 miles that you likely will go beyond on a race and just give myself some of that wiggle room. And so anyway, this run, it was much cooler than the garage, much cooler than outside, but it was still really hot. And since I don't need to be running this distance, I ended up starting off at my run-walk intervals, three minutes, one minute, at my easy pace and my my walking pace. But partway through, I think maybe 30 minutes in, I didn't really pay too close attention because I was starting to get itchy. And when I get itchy, that means I'm stressing my body out, either heat or like anxiety thinking about it. And so I, it meant I was hot and I was struggling to keep running. And it wasn't easy anymore. And so I slowed it down by 2.2 miles per hour, which is my previous easy pace from before my recent pace testing. And I ended up switching to two minutes running, two minutes walking. I slowed my walk down by 0.2 miles per hour as well. And the Planet Fitness treadmills, they shut off at one hour. So I did my warm-up, restarted the treadmill, and then I did 58 minutes. And that's when I officially switched to two minutes, two minutes on my watch. And I also had a timer set up to go off so that I didn't experience if the treadmill was just going to shut off. I didn't think that was the case, but I didn't know for sure. So I didn't want it to just shut off. It will just go to a cool down, by the way, at this planet fitness. But I made sure to shut off the treadmill, restart it. I worked on my watch to get it to the two-minute, two-minute again, and just kept going. And so overall, this run felt harder than I wanted it to. I was also nervous about the whole thing. So my heart rate was higher to start. I ate a bowl and a half of apple cinnamon Cheerios and I had a Coke before my run. I filled two 26 ounce water bottles with three and a half packets of scratch and two and a half packets of liquid IV, divided evenly between the two. I also had two servings of nerd gummy clusters and I ate two to three clusters each walk break. And at one point I drank too much water. Well, it wasn't plain water, but it was my hydration mix because I was so close to finishing the bottle that I was like, oh, I just want to finish the bottle. But there was still more left in it than I thought. And so I ended up drinking way too much, and that was a bad idea. So stick with just doing your normal sips so that your stomach doesn't get all queasy. It didn't necessarily feel like it was sloshing around, but it wasn't comfortable because it was more than what I normally sip on. And you know, I I knew that once I realized it was too much to drink, I I knew I shouldn't be drinking it, but my brain wasn't comprehending that in the moment. Like after after the fact, I'm like, oh, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. That was that was not the smartest thing. But all of the blood was going to my skeletal muscles, my muscles to make me move. My blood was not going to my brain. I was not thinking clearly, which is also why I recommend portioning out all of your fuel based on where you're going to be. So for me, I do it by segments. So if I have two amounts of nerd scumming clusters to take, I fix them so that by the halfway point, I need to be done with bag one. But excuse me, that doesn't make sense. I put one serving of nerd scumming clusters per bag. So right now, if I'm only bringing two, I know I need to be done with the first one by halfway. And if it's a much longer run, then I may have three or four bags. And I tell myself, okay, this is how many need to be done by the halfway point. And I actually put them in different pockets. So my right side pockets are the second half of my run, and my left side pockets are the first half of my run. So, because I always go into that left pocket when I'm going to grab more fuel. And so the later portions start off in my right pocket. So anyway, I know that by the halfway point, my left pocket should be empty. And then I can switch them over by them. But that way I don't need to do any thinking on the run because of this exact scenario. I'm not thinking. Your blood is not going to your brain as much as it is when you're not running. So do what you can to make it so you don't need to think. But overall, this workout was pretty good. I did bring applesauce, Fritz peanut butter crackers, and a protein shake for after the run. It took me about two hours for this run. And it my estimate was an hour and 48 minutes. So I was right on the money. When I broke this up, my my first run took me one hour, five minutes, and 14 seconds. My second portion of it took me one hour, one minute and 51 seconds. So let's round the second one up to one minute, two seconds. Mm-mm. One hour, two minutes, and round the other one down to one hour, five minutes. That took me two hours and seven minutes. So I thought it was going to take me an hour 48, but that was at those faster paces. So I slowed it down. Instead of an hour 48, it took me two hours and seven minutes. That's great. A plus plus, because a long run should be about time on your feet. So it's okay for it to take longer. Whether that means you need to slow down even more, if you need to walk more, I even changed my run walk intervals to two minutes, two minutes instead of three minutes, one minute. All of that is a okay because it's all about time on your feet for these long runs. You'll have another opportunity next week to try and run that specific easy pace and do those specific run walk intervals. You'll have another opportunity to do that next week. But in the summer heat, slow it down, take more breaks, safety first, and make sure that you can continue running week after week, as opposed to getting ill or stressing your body out too much, such that you then need to take two weeks off, four weeks off, or something like that. It's better to slow down now and be able to pick up again in a month when the weather is cooler or whenever the weather gets cooler and and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how you have to do it right now.