A quick 5k but I don't seem to be getting any better

I think a great deal of it has to do with how unbearably hot it is in the afternoon where I live but while I am reasonably happy with my 5k run times, I don't seem to be getting any better and this is a bit frustrating.

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I was reading an article the other day called "How hot is too hot to run" and there was some pretty good information in there about how the heat your body will generate for ever degree above 15C / 59F will lower your pace but about .5% per degree. They also say that any degrees over 21C / 70F is Dangerous. Lol, we are more like 100 degrees F over here now and I guess that explains why my heart rate is just through the roof on these runs I do.

I'm not really all that displeased with this heart rate considering the heat index, and it gives me hope for what sort of performance I will have once it cools off finally in a few months.

YOu can see that I beat my pace goal of under 7 mins / km by just a bit but if you look at my heart rate it starts to get dangerously high as I get near the end of my run.

I do this thing that I think most regular runners do where I really turn it on towards the end and honestly, that last 500 meters seems longer than the 4.5km that come before it.

I actually felt pretty strong in the first 3km and wasn't really bothered by the heat or anything else but there is something about the back end of this that is just grueling. I am still running with a frozen solid water bottle on these runs and by the end of this 5k, it was almost completely liquid. When I walk at the end of it, it isn't very long before the entire ice block is melted and consumed and this is a good gauge of how much the heat is affecting things. On some days the last bit of ice just wont melt and my rule is that I have to stay out and do cardio until the ice is gone and consumed. Most days this isn't an issue because it is so hot outside that the ice melts rather rapidly.

It's a decent system because who actually knows how hot it feels outside. We always hear about "heat index" or "real feel" but to me anyway, that is rather meaningless. The frozen bottle of water doesn't know how to lie though and when the bottle is nearly completely liquid before the 5k is even over, I know that I am dealing with a ridiculously hot and humid day.

Normally I will lose around 2kg of body weight in these runs and on really hot days it can take me several hours to get my body temperature back to something resembling normal.

I read that "summer pains lead to fall gains" and I am looking forward to how effortless the 5k runs will be come that time. This is the first year that I have ran all the way through summer and stopped making excuses based on the weather, so hopefully we will see some really noticeable gains come October.