HOT!

And humid.

Ran home from work last night at 8:30 and took it very easy. There had been some light rain that had only served to increase the humidity to 101% while the temperature stayed up around 30 degrees. I kept my heart rate in the low to mid 70% range and yet still ended up feeling like a steamed beetroot by the end of the run. A wet and dripping steamed beetroot. The time for the 8.7 km was 49 minutes...that's 5:38/km pace! When I walked in the door I was not surprised to discover that my wife had turned on the air conditioner for the first time of the summer.

Running to work this morning over the identical route was not much better. I suppose the humidity was slightly lower, but the temperature was still 28 or 29 degrees. That is the thing with Tokyo summer: you don't get that diurnal variation, the slightly cooler morning, that we get in Australia. At four minutes faster overall, the pace was a more respectable 5:09/km. But hang on, at times my heart rate was up around 80%! Certainly rarely less than 77%.  About 30 minutes into the run I stopped for water and just basically took a few minutes break. It was ridiculous how uncomfortable it felt.

Two more months of this? Yuck!