On Crossfit and Summer Mileage

It's the latest craze sweeping the fitness nation...Crossfit.
You can run for thousands of miles without doing long training runs...Crossfit
You'll be faster, stronger, better...Crossfit
You don't go to a gym, you go to a "box", you do a WOD (never the same thing twice)...Crossfit
Oh, and it costs about 3 or 4x what a "regular" gym costs....Crossfit


All that being said, I haven't decided whether to join or not.  I went for a free class on Saturday and, I really enjoyed it.  One problem for me is that the the gym, or box, is close to work, but not to home so on days off, there's small chance that I'd be willing to make the drive.  And, the cost is somewhat prohibitive.  It's a lot of money to spend to let someone kick my ass for an hour, 2 or 3 times a week - my wife has offered to do that for free..  So, I continue to debate the pros and cons.

Summer has hit the midsouth.  The weather forecast (as of this posting) for this weekend is calling for 102 degrees on Friday and 98 on Saturday and Sunday, which doesn't make me happy at all.  Even though I've been in the southern part of the country for almost 13 years now and even though I've shed some weight, the heat still gets to me (I'm still a Northerner at heart).  To say I sweat is an understatement and the heat drains me.  And, while mentally I know that I should slow my pace during the hottest weather, I have a hard time doing that at the start of a run and that comes back to bite me down the road.  For the next 2 or 3 months, the heat will be brutal and even early morning hours will not be a lot of fun.  In September, we should start to see cooler mornings, which coincides with a pickup of mileage with my training plan.

I plan on following one of Hal Higdon's training programs again this year and hope that I can do everything right (not just putting in the mileage) that will allow me to PR at the St. Jude marathon.  As for now, I'll just continue to pile up the mileage and then hit the training program on August 6th (that should be 18 weeks out from the marathon).

Stay cool my friends.  Drink lots of water and don't over do it in the heat.