The Longest Run

With so much interesting weather these days, I've been looking a lot at weather web sites. A couple of new ones to me (via Lifehacker): Stormpulse and Umbrella Today? . Also, over at The Big Picture , there's a great picture series of hurricanes as seen from space orbit . One of my favorites is this one: Photo via The Big Picture .

With the impending arrival of Tropical Storm Hanna, tomorrow's 20 mile run will be put off at least a day if not cancelled outright (which might be an ok thing as I'm feeling pretty worn out). During hurricane season I like to geek out at the National Hurricane Center Website and particularly enjoy reading the detailed overviews written by the forecasters; here's the discussion on Hurricane Ike . Reading it makes me want to learn more about weather forecasting. The overviews are updated every 6 hours at 5 and 11.

Very relevant article in the New York Times on exercising when it's hot and humid: To Beat the Heat, Learn to Sweat It Out . Lots of information on why we're affected by the heat and humidity but unfortunately there's not much to be done other than just getting used to it, or as the article says: "Heat is the X factor. Sometimes you have to just forget it and move on."

Amazing how much impact the temperature and humidity have on running performance. Last Monday, in the middle of a brutal heat wave here in New York, I struggled (a lot) to run 4.5 miles at a 10 minute per mile pace; at the time I ran it was about 73 degrees with high humidity. Today is beautiful - it's a bit below 60 degrees with moderate humidity. Just back from a 7.1 mile run which I was able to do pretty comfortably at 8:18 per mile. I was just shy of a PR for this route - missing by about 10 seconds. I'm running in the Chase Corporate Challenge later today - 3.5 miles in Central Park . Planning to take it easy.....

We arrived in Houston quite late last night, so I had to adjust my plan for today's scheduled long run. It's just as well, because there's a pretty extreme difference in temperatures between New York City and Houston these days. My last run in New York was in what I consider near perfect running conditions - 30 degrees, no wind, and dry; at the time of my run today in Houston it was 66 degrees. I'm not sure I've ever experienced such a big difference over a two day period. I'll have to plan the long run - which I'll now do tomorrow - very carefully. Fun to be in Houston, though. It's a beautiful time of year here and I've already seen some spectacular flowers. Pictures to come!