Thursday, July 18, 2013

Walking Into the Heat

A thought occurred to me as I trudged up the hill at the start of my run yesterday. A heat advisory was in effect for our region because it was balls hot. And humid too. Readings close to 90 degrees and 9 million percent humidity shot the heat index up to "WTF are you doing running in this soup?"

But really, it wasn't so bad. The nice thing about running the Buckeye Trail is the tree cover. And because of the hills, I don't think twice about taking a walk break, whether it's because my legs are tired or because the heat has obliterated the oxygen in the air. 

My legs were a bit weak, but not heavy as I expected after not running for a week. And while the heat was oppressive and forced me to slow down, I didn't want to die at all. And so I wondered, have my lunchtime walks helped me acclimate to the heat?

The temperature has been hovering amid the fiery furnaces of hell all week, and each day I've walked close to two miles at midday, wearing jeans, a short-sleeve shirt and sometimes shoes. (I think I cooked my soles a bit on the baked sidewalks on Monday, so I've been taking it easy with the barefoot thing in this heat.) I'm not a totally gross, sweaty mess when I get back to the office, but I've been close. 

I almost took off my charcoal colored shirt during yesterday's walk, but I thought I'd look like a major douche-bro. Instead, I just rolled up my sleeves to make it look like I was wearing a collared tanktop, which was more of a classy douche-bro look. We've got another heat advisory in effect today, so hopefully my lighter colored shirt will help me out.

Between the 30-minute trek along the trails and the pull-ups and chin-ups after my run (and this morning too), my whole body exudes that pleasantly dull ache. I've missed that feeling.

On Poaching Water
Every time I've run this particular section of the Buckeye Trail, I've seen four or five jugs of water by a tree at the entrance to the trail where it crosses a road. It looks to be the same jugs each time. I assume it's a running group, but is it really possible that my random running schedule coincides with that of some group? With a park ranger station just across the street, I've wondered if they put the water there since there are no drinking fountains nearby. 

I parked at the ranger station and had my own ice water nearby, but what if I needed that water? Have you ever seen drop bottles and considered "borrowing" fluids in the event of an emergency? I'm a monster, aren't I?

2 comments:

misszippy said...

I think your walks at that hour could definitely help. Makes sense to me. On the bottles--my club puts out jugs at three stops each week during our Sat. runs. People definitely poach from them and I don't get too worked up over it.

Nitmos said...

One sure way to get a reaction: Knock the jugs over spilling all of the water out. If no one in particular seems to complain, then the rangers must have put it out.