I'm A Sea Monkey

A peek into the weather forecast shows that it's going to be wet in the days leading to the race. Lows of 23C with 60% chance of rain. Indeed the weather has been gloomy in the evenings the past 3 weeks. At this juncture I won't take any risks running the rain but if there's going to be a downpour on race day, I'll say "BRING IT ON!" Just like sea monkeys, I come alive when I come into contact with rainwater during a race - Heh heh! Bad analogy.

Though there are obvious challenges when running in the rain - from chafing to soggy socks and shoes to impaired vision - I personally find that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Look at it this way - you can manage chafing by lubing, and vision impediment by wearing a cap. All those variables you can control, but not the weather and soggy shoes. So instead of fearing it, why not embrace it? It's not like you can turn the tap off or something like that. That's my take. Then consider this: you sweat less in the rain, obviously! Sweating is a cooling mechanism of the body and when the air and body are kept cooled by the rain, your body's core temperature doesn't jump off the charts. If you're not overly bothered or distracted by the soggy shoes, you may actually find that it takes less effort to run compared to when it's warm.

I predict with almost certainty that it will be a wet 29th especially in the early evenings. How cool race morning is depends on how long the rain persists the night before. Chances are it will be a dry but cool race morning. The past 4 Sundays saw varied weather conditions after 8am - from cool and cloudy to very sunny and warm. That means those aiming for a finishing time of 3:30 or longer may expect a bit of a challenge in the form of the sun, more so with a tough 35K - 41K section.

Today's workout was the Yasso 800s. (read about it here | here). Since this was the first time I was doing this - have previously done a couple of 1K repeats - I decided to go with 6 reps targeting 4:00 per 800m with 1:15 recovery in between. The 1:15 recovery in hindsight is too little as the prescribed recovery time is the same as the target set time. So I had much much lesser rest than recommended! The workout started after a short 800m warmup and the pre-programmed 205 took over.

Rep 1 - 5:11 (6:30 pace) = too slow

Rec 1 - 1:15

Rep 2 - 3:46 (4:44 pace) = "What the...?"

Rec 2 - 1:15

Rep 3 - 3:48 (4:45 pace) = hmmm pretty consistent

Rec 3 - 1:15

Rep 4 - 3:42 (4:38 pace) = Thinking, "Can I last the workout???"

Rec 4 - 1:15

Rep 5 - 3:39 (4:35 pace) = Thinking, "Am I running too fast?"

Rec 5 - 1:15

Rep 6 - 3:42 (4:38 pace) = Still relatively consistent

Rec 6 - 2K warmdown

Total distance = approx 8K including warmup, recovery walk/jog and warmdown.