Warmer

The warmer weather brings with it some new considerations for running I haven't thought about in a long time. On Sunday and Monday - both days were right around 65 to 70 degrees - I ran a combined 20 miles and did not hydrate myself properly. I lost a ton of weight just because I sweat so much and never replenished my bod. This caused me to feel very tired all of yesterday afternoon with a mild headache running pretty constantly in my noggin.

Of course, given the predictability of Charlotte's weather it may get back down to 40 again next week so I won't have to think about proper hydration as much on my runs.

First race of the season is a week from this Saturday, so that's exciting. It's a 4 miler, which seems a somewhat non-traditional distance to race but given that I run/race that distance almost every Thursday I'm pretty used to the pacing. I'm shooting for a goal time of sub 24:00 with the bonus goal of doing 4 miles of sub 6 minutes. Of course if I accomplish the latter I'll obviously accomplish the former... The second goal is there to make sure I try to stay consistent with my pacing. I'm not sure how I feel about negative splits in a race this short but I'm pretty much going to go out hard and just hold on tight. I'd like to place in my age group. It might happen.

I also got some badass new racing flats from Asics. They are, according to their manufacturer, the lightest racing shoes Asics has ever produced for the US market. I got one of the last 3 pairs in my size off zappos.com so that must mean they're pretty popular. I haven't gotten to take a mini spin in them but I'm going to try and get a couple of miles in them before the race. They look super fast. Just what I need.