Five Runs in a Week

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I ran five days out of seven this week. I ran Monday, twice and then once several days. Most of the runs were easy and early, for two reasons. The first is that we’re in a canicule so pushing hard doesn’t make sense. The second reason is that there are fewer social rides organised.

Today I ran four times around the Lac de Divonne, to meet the distance required by Runna. I didn’t actually run 13km not because of pacing but because of heat. We’re in a heat wave and Runna doesn’t have the intelligence to see the heat and say “stay healthy” and “don’t overdo it”. For Runna it has a program, and that’s what you have to do. Heat doesn’t matter, gradient doesn’t matter.

More importantly, the reason I didn’t push myself for the last two kilometres is that my apartment doesn’t cool during the day, and barely cools at night, because it is Minergie. This means that the heat that comes in to the building during the day doesn’t depart at night.

Yesterday I showed signs of heat distress simply sitting in the apartment, because I forgot to hydrate enough. That’s why running and overdoing it didn’t make sense this morning. My space to recover is dangerous.

1000 people have died in France because of the heatwave and 300 have died in Spain so far. Europe is under the first heat dome of this summer and another one is going to hit within days. We’re going to be too hot for the entire summer.

Despite the context of the heatwave I still managed to run five days out of seven, and I no longer worry about being able to complete seven kilometres. Running has become normal, so I can add another sport to the collection. I never thought that I would add running.

This year I already ran 500km and summer is still young so I expect to be able to run my goal, with ease.

There is one thing, about running. Within an hour social runs are over, and I find this to be a shame. I’d like for runs to last a little longer. By 9 I’m often done with the run, and it is back to solitude. There are swims and brunch but the swims are short.

When rides were spread across the week it was easy to participate in several rides per week, whether Wednesday morning, Thursday Afternoon, or a choice of rides on Saturday. Now that rides, and runs overlap, I have to make a choice of which to favour, and temporarily running is winning.

We will see when I resume my normal cycling habit. In the meantime I am happy to have a new sport to enjoy.