What's better than a mid-day 6 mile run with the temperature at 90 degrees plus, and heavy, heavy humidity? And no wind, by the way.
Everything and anything... But I had that hankering to do a tough
run. It had been a big weekend of drinking and eating and I had a lot of bad ju-ju that I
wanted to sweat out. So I had
good cause…
I got myself prepped with the necessary goodies for a "you-must-be-crazy-to-run-in-this-heat" kind of a run: Vaseline, sunscreen, a camel-back loaded with
ice, a sweat-wicking skull cap, and sunglasses. And off I went – and I had a
great, but tough, run.
I kept myself at a very easy pace, 9:50-10:15 min/mile pace
and never got to a point where I was predominately breathing through my mouth (For me,
that’s a key indicator of my aerobic intensity. If I’m breathing through my
mouth 100% of the time, I know that my heart rate is pushing 130bps, and so if I’m breathing mostly through my
nose while running I know that my heart rate is likely around 120 or so.
But it was hot, so hot and muggy! My route had a lot of shade trees, but I had stretches of a half-mile or more that had no shade whatsoever, and those parts were brutal.
But it was hot, so hot and muggy! My route had a lot of shade trees, but I had stretches of a half-mile or more that had no shade whatsoever, and those parts were brutal.
I started out sipping water from my camel back every half mile, and
then later in the run when I was feeling the most heat (and I was definitely
hot from exertion) I started drinking much more often as well as soaking my skull cap with the cold water from my
camel back. I got hot enough that I took a walk break in a shady area at mile 5 so that I could cool myself down after a long stretch
in the sun.
But overall it was a great, focused, run. I felt that I ran
with purpose and determination. It goes without saying that the plunge into the pool afterwards was awesome. And I definitely felt like had relieved myself of most of the bad ju-ju... I know I have a good sweat going when the sweat is flying off my fingers as I run.
I lost 3 pounds during my run, despite constantly taking in
fluids. According to an article that I
read, that equates to 3 pints of water loss – which sounds pretty crazy. A three pound loss also comes out to 1.8% body
weight loss for me, which I think is within the safe zone of temporary weight
loss due to sweating fluids out. But the 3 pints of water still sounds nuts to
me. That would be on top of all the water that I drank while running (which
turned out to be ~2 pints). Hmmm
