Heat Stroke: It's What's for Dinner

I was feeling restless yesterday so I went for a run. It was after 5pm but it was May in Florida so it was 110 degrees with 110 percent humidity. I was going to run a quick five miles, which turned into five kilometers at the top of the hill less than a quarter of a mile into the run. I’ve been running pretty regularly for more than two years but it still shocks the hell out of me how much difference the temperature makes in running performance. I hadn’t run in a couple of weeks but I’ve been doing a lot on the elliptical machine so I’m in decent cardiovascular shape. I wasn’t pushing myself because I knew my legs weren’t up for anything serious. I was refusing to let myself run the first mile in less than ten minutes. My attitude had changed three minutes in at the top of the hill to just do three miles. I was inhaling but I guess the part of the world I was running in was low on oxygen because I was getting nothing. Why doesn’t oxygen work over eighty degrees? If it’s seventy degrees or cooler I can dial in at about a ten minute mile and run forever. Training for the River Run was fun. Running yesterday was agony. It didn’t help that I had just finished a couple of helpings of spaghetti right before I ran. I was wondering if I would slow down if I started to feel sick or would I just blow chunks on the sidewalk like it was nothing because I wanted the run to be over. Fortunately, I never had to make that choice. I ran 3.2 miles in just over thirty minutes, which should have been no big deal, and I’m feeling it today. My legs are sore and they shouldn’t be. Unfortunately, I’m at a macho crossroads. On the one hand, I’m thinking about running before dawn because it’s fun and relatively pain free. On the other hand, I’m thinking about running at 2pm everyday and seeing if I can get used to it.

…to be continued.