Heat, Heat, Go away! Come again after we've had too much of the cold, please! :)

The last few weeks have been challenging weeks. Kimi and I have returned to heavy training. Over the last couple weeks, we've been running over 60 miles per week and all in singles. It hasn't come quite as easy as it did prior to our June marathon but I'm assuming that has a lot to do with the intense heat that has taken over during the last month or so. I've always found that some of the hardest mileage of the year comes in August while the hot temperatures seem to just hang around and the anticipation for cooler air just keeps building. With that in mind, sometimes you have to alter your expectations for how you might feel on a day to day basis with the understanding that when the cooler air does arrive, (and I'm sure it will eventually) the times will get easier to hit and the way you feel will also improve.

This is is exactly what Kimi and I are banking on. Our runs haven't been absolutely horrible but they definitely aren't going quite how we'd both like them to be going right now. I remain optimistic and trust in what we're doing right now but it sure does get difficult in late August to stay the course when the times you're used to running in Spring and Fall temperatures aren't happening.

Over the last couple weeks, Kimi and I have run two workouts each week and a long run.  We've run a Fartlek, and a track workout.  They both were reasonable but definitely slower than what both of us have grown accustomed to.

Over the weekend, Kimi and I headed to Nixa for the first ever Diva Dash 5k - Nixa put on by KC Running Company. Kimi has always enjoyed these races because of their competitive fields.  She usually gets to really compete with some of the best female runners in the mid-west at these races. This particular event wasn't quite as fast as most of the Diva Dash 5k's have been in the past and Kimi ran off with the win by 3+ minutes. It was hot and she ran really well considering she was pushing herself all by herself. She managed to muster up a 17:54 so all in all it was a good day!  Since Kimi was running in an all women's event, I had to do my own tempo run by myself. I started about 15 minutes prior to the start of Kimi's race and ran the entire course myself. However, I had planned to go an additional mile to make a 4 mile tempo so I had to do a little bit of looping towards the end just to finish out the tempo run. This was probably one of the better tempo runs I've had in quite some time. To be honest, I couldn't even begin to put a finger on why that is unless Kimi's old Garmin Forerunner was simply being generous to me (which it does seem to do for some reason).

Over the next couple weeks, Kimi and I are going to be focused on a lot of speed work and high intensity tempo runs to get us into racing shape.  The next couple months are the most exciting racing months of the year (but of course, you know that already)!