Week of Mar. 30 - Apr. 5, 2026
This week was week 14 of 17 of my training plan for the On the Dam 30k trail race on April 25, 2026. It was my peak training week. Besides that, it was also extremely busy at work AND with tennis, so this is a week I'm glad to have done. Except that I had a big fail on my longest long run, which I'll discuss below. Now I start to taper.
Monday after work:
- 60 min easy
- T+D 123, 1.5% effect, T 70 F
- time: 1:00:00
- distance: 4.8 mi
- average pace: 12:30 (GAP ave pace: 12:22)
- splits: 12:13, 12:31, 12:18, 12:57, 12:30
- ave HR: 128 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 298 ft (corrected)
- route: Forest Glen Annex and Rock Creek Trail
- comment: The main feature of this run is that almost all of the elevation gain is in one big hill over about a half-mile. For training, I try to keep a running gait going up the hill without letting my HR get too far out of the easy effort level. My legs were tired after the previous day's long run, but I managed it.
Tuesday
- Before breakfast:
- Unilateral strength
- 2 x 15 each leg - straight leg reverse lunges with 20-lbe vest + 20 lb
- 10 each leg - isometric step-up, 10-sec hold
- 2 x 15 each leg - heel taps from low step with 20-lb vest + 5 lb
- 2 x 15 each leg - single-leg Romanian deadlifts with 5 lb
- 2 x 15 each leg - hip airplanes with 10 lb
- Foam rolling and stretching
- After work:
- Speed intervals - 15 min easy + 6 x (1.5 min fast + 1.5 min easy) + 15 min easy
- T+D 137, 3% effect, 80 F
- time: 48:01
- distance: 4.12 mi
- speed interval splits: 9:20, 9:22, 9:28, 8:53, 8:52, 8:56
- elevation gain: 118 ft (corrected)
- route: Sligo Creek Trail
- comments: This route was paved, so it was not a trail run.
- comments: You can tell that the first three intervals were on a slight uphill and the second three on a slight downhill.
- comments: I had planned to do a longer warm-up and cool-down to get this to 60 minutes, but I had a late meeting at work and I just didn't feel it.
Wednesday
- Before breakfast: core workout
- 90-sec plank with 20-lb vest
- 20 starfish
- 20 dead bugs
- 20 bird dogs
- 20 each side flutter kicks
- 20 bicycle crunches with hold
- 5 10-sec hollow-body holds
- 2 30-sec side planks with arm and leg raised
- 20 double-leg lift/lowers
- After dinner:
- Walk on treadmill
- time: 30:00
- distance; 1.68 mi
- average pace: 17:51
- incline: 1%
- comments: Watched the Artemis II launch
- 2-hr tennis doubles round-robin
Thursday
- After work:
- T+D 100, no effect, T 51 F, windy
- time: 40:01
- distance: 3.26 mi
- average pace: 12:17 (GAP ave pace: 12:07)
- splits: 12:27, 12:16, 12:08, 12:18
- ave HR: 127 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 194 ft (corrected)
- route: neighborhood loop 1
- In evening: 2-hr tennis doubles match - my partner and I lost 6-2, 6-1
Friday after work: walk on treadmill
- time: 46:45
- distance: 2.67 mi
- average pace: 17:31
- incline: 1%
- comments: Taking it easy today to rest for the next day.
Saturday
- 240 min LR on trail - FAIL!
- At start: T+D 124, 1% effect, T 70 F. At end: T+D 129, 1.5% effect, T 77 F - I don't believe this!
- time: 3:06:38 - did not reach time goal
- distance: 12.48 mi
- average pace: 14:57 (GAP ave pace: 14:32)
- splits: 14:05, 12:46, 13:27, 12:57, 13:57, 15:14, 15:57, 13:54, 16:56, 16:00, 15:38, 16:55, 18:19
- ave HR: 136 BPM
- elevation gain: 1836 ft (corrected)
- route: Quemahoning Trail
I'm going to discuss this in paragraph form rather than bullets. I drove almost 3 hours to the state park where the race will be held. The race is goes round the Quemahoning Reservoir southeast of Pittsburgh. I like to run the trails before race day to get a feel for them, and it also gives me a chance to locate the start area ahead of time. The whole race loop is supposed to be a smidgen under 18 miles; given that I did 15 miles in 3.5 hours the previous week, it seemed reasonable that I should be able to do the whole loop in about 4 hours.
Yay for nice bathrooms at the campground where we start! But it felt WAY more humid than the weather app observations said. I had run earlier in the week with T+Ds in the 120s and 130s, and this felt a lot more humid. I'm guessing it was around T+D 140. The weather observations are "from" a town a few miles away - maybe the reservoir area tends to be a lot more humid because it has so much water? That did not give me a good feeling to start. Also, there was a decent amount of direct sunlight because the trees haven't fully leafed out yet.
It took me a little exploring to find the connector trail from the campground to the loop around the reservoir - this was a huge downhill on a dirt road - some 300 ft down (which of course means I would eventually have to come up it). But then I got on the Quemahoning Trail (called the "Que" by the park for obvious reasons).
This trail is really quite lovely in a lot of areas. It's got rolling hills that are generally not too steep. It's all dug into the side of the hillside going down to the reservoir - it's also a mountain bike trail, although I encountered zero bikes. I settled into this and thought "ok, maybe this isn't too bad". The scenery let me ignore the humidity for awhile.
But then there is a section that gets really rocky (It's Rocksylvania, after all), so I had to walk that to keep from twisting an ankle. Also some trees down to climb over. This is where I just started to realize I was on the verge of getting really wiped - and it was only miles 6/7 and 90 minutes or so!
I persisted (slowly) until a little over 8 miles. That's when I realized both my ears were already clogged up and my throat was just parched. I was having to walk nearly everything ALREADY. When I do long runs in heat and humidty, it makes my ears feel like they are clogged for some reason - it's always a sign that I am just wiped out, usually because of the humidity.
At about 8.5 miles and 2 hours, I crossed a road and came to a decision point. I could try to go the remaining ~10.5 miles, even if I walked it, or I could head back to the starting point on the road (about 4 miles) - if I went further forward, it might be awhile before I could bail out again, and it would definitely be longer to get back. I really wasn't sure how long it would take me to finish the whole loop if I walked it, and with the extra time that would take, I would be running out of water for sure. Plus there were thunderstorm possibilities. So I decided to go back on the road, which fortunately was not a busy one. I thought I would run a bit on the road, since it was easier, but after doing more than a couple minutes at a time, my hamstrings wanted to cramp up. I was only able to do that a little bit.
I did make it back, and the whole excursion was only about 3 hours (lots of breaks with pauses on the GPS). But I felt like I had gone so much farther!
I took 1.5 L water + Nuun and 1 L water and drank on my usual schedule. I ate one serving of Teddy Grahams, one serving of dried apricots, and two servings of dried pineapple. I had more food, but I didn't eat it since I cut things short.
I got cleaned off in those lovely bathrooms and drank cold water I had left in the car (yes, I can be smart sometimes). Then I went to Sheetz to get more liquids and food for the drive home. My ears didn't unclog for over an hour. (Wow, that's so annoying.)
This was a huge FAIL. My long run last week was 3.5 hours and 15 miles, so it was perfectly reasonable to think I could do about 18 miles in the 4 hours. But last week for my long run, the T+D was 88, and as I said, I think the T+D for this run must have been about 140. Last week, I was definitely tired and sore by the end, but in a very expected way given the run; this week, I was tapped out at 90 min.
As I'm writing this the day after the run, my recovery has definitely been different than previous long runs. My legs are not nearly so tired and sore - after all, I only did 12 miles! I think it shows that the cause of the problems was humidity and not fitness. I did lose over 2 lbs from yesterday to today (despite eating all the salt from a Sheetz pepperoni and cheese sub), which is definitely water weight, and that's pretty substantial for me.
But now I'm very frustrated because I didn't get that long run in, and I don't have time to try it again with my taper and the race coming up. Having a 3.5-hr long run should be sufficient for training, but it was farther away from the race than I had planned, and I don't know how that will affect things.
I'm also really worried about what conditions will be like on race day. I don't know if there's really anything I can do to try to mitigate the humidity. I can plan to drink a lot more (so I will have to stop to refill bottles at the aid stations, because I can't actually carry more that easily). But will that be sufficient? I'm thinking about getting salt tablets or similar to try, although I've never done that before - it's not clear that that's a contributing factor.
I'm also looking at the De Soto cooling tops that FFigawi mentioned. I may get one, hopefully in time to wear it on a couple of long runs to see what it does for me.
As a mention, it's definitely the case that I do NOT do well running in humidity. That's why I don't race anything long in the summer. I run in afternoons all summer, so you would think that I would adjust to the humidity, but I just do NOT to a significant extent. (Obviously this is early in the year, so I haven't had that opportunity yet.) People always say "I don't do well in the humidity, either", but I challenge folks to show the same kind of melt down that I had this week compared to the previous week. It's really frustrating!!!
I do have photos to show how pretty it was. I also had my first snake encounter of the season: a little garter snake, which didn't stop me from shrieking when I almost stepped on it.
Sunday afternoon: power hiking hills on treadmill
- time: 3:00:00
- distance: 9.58 mi
- average pace: 18:47
- elevation gain: 4513 ft
- 5 min: 3.0 mph, 6 - 14% incline
- 15 min: 15%
- 15 min: 14%
- 15 min: 3.1 mph, 13%
- 15 min: 12%
- 15 min: 3.2 mph, 11%
- 15 min: 10%
- 15 min: 3.3 mph, 9%
- 15 min: 8%
- 15 min: 3.4 mph, 7%
- 15 min: 6%
- 15 min: 3.5 mph, 5%
- 5 min: 4%
- 5 min: 0%
Health
No issues.
