The heat and I are on much better terms this year than we have been for the past several years. And it's a good thing, too, because summer running is here. 

Workout summary

• Monday: Mile repeats - 5.42 miles (8:21 pace)
• Tuesday:  Barre class
• Wednesday: Barre class
• Thursday: Easy run - 5.06 (8:46 pace)
• Friday: OFF
• Saturday: Moms' Run 5K
• Sunday: "Long" run - 6.22 (8:59 pace)

Total miles:  19.80 miles
Total runs: 4
Total yoga/barre/strength: 2

My schedule has been rather chaotic lately and lacking a solid routine. It seems like everything is all over the place right now and I need to find some stability amidst the chaos. My mom was also in town for a visit last week, so while we had a great time and did lots of fun activities, workout things were jumbled a little because of that. But overall, it was a good week of workouts. 

I intentionally did some mid-day runs to help get myself acclimated to the blazing heat, and to see how my lungs held up. I'm happy to report that they did really well. But I've also noticed that since it's gotten warmer, I'm struggling more to stay hydrated. I've been getting headaches after running and just feeling generally crappy. I had this issue before when I first started running in the summer of 2012 and upping my water and electrolyte intake helped. Time to start chugging. 

Monday, I did mile repeats (3 x 1 mile) with a warm up and cool down plus 400s as recoveries. My mile repeats came in at 7:29, 7:14, and 6:52. This was at noon in 80 degrees, so clearly, I've got some speed in me somewhere. I just need to start channeling it for races, and do some consistent speedwork in training, which is something I'm notoriously bad about. 

My other two runs were in the easy zone since I also ran the Moms' Day Run. While I only made it to two barre classes and I missed yoga entirely (and I can tell!), getting in two speed sessions and two decent easy runs counts as success for me! 

After my long run on Sunday, I was coughing a bit and noticed I wasn't able to breathe as deeply. My run was fine, I felt good and didn't need my inhaler at all, but afterwards, things felt a little off. I used my rescue inhaler and took my other medication. I had initially been taking it in the morning, but saw that it was supposed to work better if it's taken a night, so I switched. Nope, nope, nope. I need to take that stuff in the morning for it to work for me. Within 30 minutes, everything was back to normal and I could take big, deep, normal person breaths. It so bizarre, but prior to this medicine that shallow breathing I was feeling was just normal for me almost all the time for at least the past year. No wonder I felt like crap. Yay for meds that work!

Since the heat and I are better friends this year, I'll be continuing with at least one, sometimes two speed sessions per week through the summer and I'll be running four or five days a week with my long runs getting back into the 8-12 mile zone. Paddleboarding starts soon, so I'm looking forward to that, too. And barre and yoga are musts now. I just need to figure out which days they work best for the rest of my schedule.

If I can keep all of this up through the summer slogginess, I should be ready to go come fall.