Feelin' Hot Hot Hot!

Well summer has finally arrived here in Hawaii! Yippee! We get to turn the fans on at night so we can sleep without sweating... we get to wear tank tops and shorts without suffering goosebumps... we get to slather sunscreen on whenever we take a step outside... and we get to deal with massive dehydration on all our training days. Awesome, no?

Since it was nice and sunny today, we decided to take Moana and the dog to the beach this morning. It seems like it's been so long since we've gathered the whole family and headed to play in the ocean... but it was really fun today! The water felt warmer than it's been lately and everybody was quite happy. Especially the dog. You say 'beach' once and Hoku all of a sudden follows you around everywhere as if to say, "No way you're going to the beach without me!" (Sometimes we spell the word if we are not indeed planning on bringing along the dog.) Moana is also smart enough now that all we had to do was mention the word 'beach' in passing over breakfast and then the rest of the morning she kept repeating, "go beach!"

And once we got there, she was all smiles!
So for those of you who are suffering 45 degrees and rain right now, here's a little video so you can live vicariously. ;)

Ok, I'll admit it- I had an ulterior motive in planning a morning at the beach today though... it's all about my workouts (lol) and what I really wanted was an opportunity to run long in the heat. SO with that in mind I packed my running shoes and a few gels and planned on running home from the beach today. Nothing like starting your run at 10:45AM. 84 degrees. Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect.

I had my shoe pod on because I wasn't really sure of mileage or anything since this was not a route I normally take. I did an extra loop that added a few miles to make sure I got the distance in... 14.6 miles later I arrived home feeling like a rock star! I was so surprised at how solid I felt running today. Comfortable in HR zone 2 but running close to 1/2 IM race pace. Doesn't get much better than that! I won't go into the boring details of my training week, but suffice to say it's been a very big one, and to finish it up with such a solid run was like icing on the cake. I just embraced the heat today- even when I thought, "Could it be any hotter???"... I replied to myself, "Yes. It will be hotter at Honu, so suck it up princess."

Anyway, just for fun, I weighed myself this morning and then again after the run. I drank 80 oz of water while running and then another 20 oz with my Ultragen recovery drink, so I figured my post-workout weight would be similar to my pre-workout weight... but turns out even 100oz later I still lost 2.5 lbs. Holy sweat-rate, batman! Welcome to summer in Hawaii.