Love those cool snaps ...

A cooler spell outside
(Courtesy exfordy @ Flickr)

Some say there are five seasons in Louisiana: spring, summer, fall, winter and hurricane season. Perhaps that's true. We've certainly had our share of hurricane seasons in the past seven years. Not that many storms, but enough direct hits to make southern Louisiana look like a worn out target at a firing range. There are some years when I'm rather convinced that we have only two seasons: the hot-and-humid season and the damp-and-dreary season. But then again, that's the glass-half-empty mentality kicking in. In any case, the transitions between those hot-and-humid and damp-and-dreary seasons can be quite nice. Like when a little cold front slides through and drops the temperatures down a bit. Like the one that rolled on in this past weekend.


The average low temperature for September 11th in Baton Rouge is 69˚F. This morning's low at the time for our scheduled run was a cool 63˚F. Delightful, simply delightful. But with the cooler temperatures come faster runs, as the temperature adjustment we make to the daily pace begins to decrease. Take today, for example.

With an average temperature of 64˚F expected between 6AM and 7AM, the average planned pace dropped precipitously from nearly 12 minutes per mile to roughly 10:35 per mile. However, given that we would be doing the walking portions at about 16:00 per mile, the running portions had to speed up to a much brisker pace of 9:22 per mile. And those running portions lengthened from roughly two minutes to - in today's case - 2:36.

It's not my heart / lung function that I worry about. I've got a lot of endurance there and can manage a faster pace, for sure. I can tell this by the fact that I only breath every 5 or 6 steps instead of every 4 steps. The worry is about the legs - will they hold out? Sure, the strength is there, but what about those funny tweaks, especially the ones that turn into knots and stop you in your stride? It's been months since that happened to the timelapserunner but he doesn't want to revisit that experience anytime soon.

The good news is that the legs held out ... a few little twinges that all pretty much subsided by run's end, resulting in a very enjoyable run, one in which we actually bested the proposed pace by a bit (actual pace: 10:26). And that's coming out of a head cold, too. Although we have to see what the one- and two-day fallout of the workout are, we're optimistic that we are no worse for the wear.

We'd better hope so, because this weekend we have a long run of 11 miles.