Hot and stupid

I ran a little stupid today. I drove the Glenwood Middle School Track to run 3x800 meter repeats at about 5:30 p.m. The Weather Channel website informed me that it was 88 degrees, but felt like 84, with 14 mph SW winds that were gusting to 22 and 22% humidity. I warmed up with a mile around the track and 800 m. of strides. My goal for the workout was to run my 800 reps in 2:55 or so with 400 m. recovery jogs between them. I ran the first rep in 2:53.15,which was quite a bit faster than I really wanted to run for the first one. My HR at the finish was 187 and when I finished my 400 m. jog and took a sip of water my HR was 160 (2:45 after the rep). I went out a little slower on the second rep and finished it in 2:55.55 which was closer to where I wanted to be. My HR at the end of the 2nd rep was 198 and I was starting to feel the heat. I allowed myself 3:00 to run my 400 and take a few swigs of water and when I started my third and final rep my HR was 184. My 20/20 hindsight tells me that I should have waited to let my HR drop about 15 to 20 more points but instead I started my last rep. As I started I could tell that I wasn't going to run the last one nearly as fast as the other two and it was confirmed when I went through the 400 in 1:38. At that point I called off the last rep and drove myself home after dumping my water bottle on my head and cranking the A/C in my car. When I got home I ran a mile around my neighborhood and called it a day.

The lesson I learned today was to alter the expectations of my workout when the weather isn't what I was hoping for it to be. I also learned that if I am going to drop the money on a decent HR monitor I probably ought to pay attention to what the darn thing is telling me about my effort. If I am expecting to run a high quality workout at a pace that is significantly faster than my 5k pace I need to give my body adequate time to recover between intervals to prevent a blow-up like I experienced today.