A Challenge Run (and lessons learned)

So, sometimes I like to give myself an extra challenge when running. Ideally I always run or bike early in the morning or late evenings.

However, since I am a slow triathlete during Olympic or longer triathlons I usually end up running in the middle of the afternoon so I have to train to run during the hottest part of the day. The hardest part is that I live just outside of Washington DC. city that was a swamp at one point. So during the summer there are 2 kinds of days:

• Sunny, very hot and humid.
• Cloudy, hot and very humid.

Personally I'd rather run in hotter but less humid days, but both suck. But I am also stupid and will add an extra challenge to myself when running. I'll run on an empty stomach (which makes it hard to run past McDonalds, smell fries and not stop), I'll run right after eating, I'll run with a heavy camel bag, I'll run without water, and worst of all I'll run tipsy.

Running drunk really is the worst. And I did that last night and could barely even run 3 miles. I did the first mile in 7:45 which is very unlike me and then died. The next 2.5 miles took 34 minutes.

We'll call that run a VO2Max run and be happy with the lesson learned.