Enjoying the Heat?

With August fast approaching, those of us who live in the
Northern Hemisphere are starting to feel the summer heat. I just got back from a long, hot run and found myself envying those of you who are running in Australia and New Zealand!

It's been a while since I sent out one of these quasi-occasional "Special Edition" newsletters -- I've been busy on other things. Mainly in developing a business networking web site at http://gr8netbiz.com (shameless plug!). It still has some bugs, but take a look and let me know what you think.

And finally, a lot of those who completed my survey
were interested in hot weather running, which is the reason for
this post. (If you didn't complete it, you can find it
here.)

The first hot weather question that comes to my mind is what to
wear. You probably know that cotton is your worst enemy,
especially if you run in high humidity. Where I run, the
humidity is generally well above 50%, which encourages profuse
sweating. Cotton, in these circumstances, quickly gets wet and
clammy, whereas synthetics are designed to wick the moisture
away from the skin. They still get wet, but help to cool you
through evaporation.

The second issue is hydration. All the books warn about staying
well hydrated in hot weather, even if you're not running. I've
found that the best way to hydrate is to drink before and after
a run. If the run lasts for an hour or more, I'll carry water to
drink during the run, and generally start drinking about 30-45
minutes into the run.

(Long slow distance runs, when abbreviated to ell-ess-dee runs,
are likely to attract unwanted attention from web crawlers, so
I'm changing the references to long-distance slow runs, or LDS
runs. Makes more sense, anyway!)

So, for my LDS runs, I'll drink a couple of glasses of sports
drink before and after the run and carry water with me.
Personally, I like the Gatorade lemon-lime flavor for the sports
drink. I carry water because sports drinks tend to be sticky and
messy when I'm consuming them on the run.

In hot weather, unless I'm training for a specific event, I
don't push myself as hard as in cooler weather. Specifically,
I'll run slower and for a shorter time than I would otherwise.
However, rather than just piling on the miles, I'll be careful
to maintain good form so the runs still count as quality runs.

On the subject of humidity, I've found that if it's much below
50%, I don't seem to sweat at all! What happens, of course, is
that the sweat evaporates as soon as it hits the skin. This is
dangerous, because you can become dehydrated without realizing
it.

Running alone is generally easier than running with a group for
me, because with a group I tend to push too hard. That's OK in
cooler weather, but it adds unnecessary stress in hot weather.
However, some people prefer running with others -- the choice is
yours.

Choosing where to run in hot weather is fun. I pick places where
there is as much shade and as much breeze as possible. I also vary
my route to avoid boredom -- a good idea in any case.

Picking the right time to run is a matter of personal choice and
opportunity. I used to run in the morning before the sun was up,
but found that it was easy to trip in a pothole and get injured.
Also, the relative humidity tends to be at its highest at that
time, which doesn't work for some people.

I find that evening running doesn't work too well for me. If I
leave my run until the evening, I'm inclined to skip it
altogether.

When I was working, I used to run at noon. That way, I ate a
light lunch (very healthy!) and used the lunch break to
exercise. By starting noon time running early in the year, I
built up my resistance to where the heat didn't bother me for the
shorter runs.

For longer runs, I prefer to run in the morning at weekends. The
weather is relatively cool, the humidity has dropped a bit, and
if I run before breakfast I still have the day ahead of me to
use as I choose. In the end, though, it's whatever works for you!

Enjoy the heat!