A Horrible Time To Run

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Let me start by mentioning that if you are planning on telling me how you run in the early morning before the sun comes up during the summer, and that I really should do the same, thanks…. I know.  I will follow that up by saying, please feel free to still leave those comments and be as hard on me as you would like to because sometimes it takes me a while to learn or in this case re-learn from my mistakes.

Yesterday my three kids and I went out for a run as soon as we got home from church, before even getting anything to eat.  The original discussion was that we would run after lunch and a short break to let the food digest, but as I looked at the weather the temperatures were going to be climbing steady all afternoon and with the temperature already near 90 degrees I knew the sun was already planning some destructive behavior at the current temps.

Too hot for me today - and it showed!

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I was not able to get out to run till after 9:30 this morning and I knew it was going to be disastrous.  The temperature at the start of the run was 84 degrees.  It was humid, and yet still very sunny.  The feels like temperature was 92 degrees.

I hydrated well, put on some SCAPE Sunblock, and hit the road.  If you haven't tried SCAPE I recommend that you do.  SCAPE sent me some to try out and I have to say overall I am impressed.  I did have a little trouble putting it on at first because it seemed to require a bit more for coverage than I am used to with other sunblocks. Once on I had the perfect test this morning with how well it would work.

The SCAPE Sunblock did not run into my eyes just like it claims.  I was sweating profusely by the time I got to mile 2 so if anything would run into my eyes that would be the time it would do so.  I wiped my face quite a bit to keep the sweat out of my eyes, but one thing I noticed was no stinging at all.  I almost always get some stinging in my eyes when I sweat this much, but this time I felt none.

Hot and Humid

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This mornings run was hot and humid. Even though the temp started out at only 76 degrees, the sun was really hot. I had plans to put in 12 miles this morning, but had some friends over last night and stayed up too late to get up when I needed to if I was going to get the 12 miles in.

I got out and hit the road at 8:30, but needed to be home by 9:30 because of the first day of All-Star T-Ball practice. I figured all I could get in was a 10k so I would run it a bit faster to work on maintaining a faster pace since I couldn't do my long easy paced run. I miss-judged how hot it was out because the temperature was under 80 degrees. As I was hitting the first mile I started to realize how hot it was and how hot the sun was.

I was doing good, but the heat was noticeably taking it's toll on my energy. After mile 5, it would have been very good to have a running partner to keep me going, but because I was running on my own, I gave in and started to walk. This was at the base of the biggest hill on my course, and that had an impact on my choice to stop and walk.

The rest of the day wasn't any better, it was just an out right scorcher.... and we spent most of the day outside. I was pleased with my run today, even though I cut it short. At just over 5 miles, with a pace of 8:12 it was one of my better training runs, especially considering the heat. Run stats.

Tim Wilson blog.262quest.com