things are heating up

this week cranked up the heat, literally and figuratively. summer weather is officially upon us here in southern louisiana, my weekly mileage has managed to climb over 60 and just for good measure i got to throw in a two mile road race mid week. each of these brought some challenges and in each of those challenges i saw small signs of progress. despite the heat i ran my biggest mileage week in years and still felt great and a 2nd place finish in the two mile didn't hurt either. it has been a long while since i felt this strong. i'm not going to break any records at the moment as my 10:13 is still 16 seconds shy of my first ever two mile in high school and 1:10 away from a PR but hey, progress is progress. and i get another shot at the distance next week to try and bring that down even more. also, to help keep things in this positive perspective, a high school kid came up to me after the race, with eyes wide and a firm but nervous handshake, to congratulate me on my performance and to say that he wished he could run like me someday. i was too stunned to say much of anything at the time. i'm not even sure if i was able to get out a thank you before he vanished into the crowd. but kid, you made my week and i hope you run much better than me one day. in the meantime we both need to find a way to beat this heat.

now, i am no stranger to long, hot summers. where i grew up in southern california we routinely endured months of 100 plus temps that often extended into the 115 range. but this new orleanian version is a different story with a one word title: humidity. the weather report uses a sort of conversion to attempt to translate this story into terms a native to my more arid homeland would understand. but it doesn't take long to realize that these apples are not those manzanas. and running seems to clarify just what is lost in that translation.

for example, this week (on race day no less) the heat index tried to tell me that our 94 degrees with 70% humidity "felt like" 102. maybe this was true for the fist 30 seconds after i walked out the door leaving air conditioned rooms behind. but once that walk quickened to a run it "felt" nothing like back home. the sweat beads were almost instantly apparent and not long after, became drops, which turned into streams, and so on, and so on. i wanted a squeegee.

so yes, it is hot and uncomfortable, so what, right? running is about adversity. figuring out how to do what you haven't done before despite an ever changing set of conditions. weather, injury, illness, work, love, fun...hurdles of every variety daring you to jump. here is the latest hurdle. so then, how do i prepare to best jump this thing?

as my high school coach used to preach: "practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect". so rather than bullheadedly putting up with this adversity and blindly flinging myself at this hurdle with a stubborn tenacity i decided to add a little research into the formula.

i began with my favorite question: why. why did this heat feel worse. much of the answer was obvious but interesting none the less. the story goes something like this: running produces heat (duh) through muscle contractions. that heat increases core temperature. the increase in core temperature triggers physiologic responses to reduce core temperature to maintain homeostasis (ideally around 98.6 deg F, give or take). two of the major responses include increased sweat and increased blood flow to the skin. so then, how do these things cool us down?

increased sweat
sweat alone does not do the cooling trick. it is actually the evaporation of sweat that causes the major cooling effect.

increased blood flow to the skin
this allows the body to bring that hot internal temp out to the surface. in the same way your morning cup of coffee transfers heat to the mug and gradually loses its scalding properties. this process is called convection.

ok then, we produce heat, we move the heat to the skin, convection carries it away, we sweat, it evaporates, we lose heat. now we add high temperatures and high humidity and it is easy to see why it feels so miserable. if we are trying to lose heat to the surrounding environment through convection and evaporation but the surrounding environment is hotter than our internal environment AND the air is already too saturated with water to allow for much evaporation, we have a cooling problem. we have our why!

now what to do about it. the easy and more obvious things are a good place to start. i run early or late avoiding the hottest part of the day. i stay in the shade when possible and hope for cloud cover. i try to stay away from the pavement as that radiates more heat than say, grass or dirt. i wear as little as possible (short shorts are my friend, shirts are not). a bandana helps quite a bit to keep the sweat out of the eyes and i have taken to twisting the thing up for reduced skin contact and thus reduced heat trapping. hydration before and after is a must, during is even better, though presents some challenges. i feel this is most needed and most difficult to accomplish on the long days. last sunday, heeding the advice of my very wise and seasoned marathon runner girlfriend, i brought along my debit card. about 60 minutes in my training partner and i found our way to a grocery store, downed a 32oz sports drink and kept the vegetable refrigerator company for a few minutes. while this was a small slice of heaven at the time, it is a bit disruptive to the run and fails to prepare us for the type of hydration situation we will encounter on marathon race day. a better system is in the works.


notable marks of the week:

62 miles in the last 7 days.
10:13 two mile road race. two mile PR is 9:04. hopefully i can improve upon that time this week.

goal for the week:

sub 10 two mile


latest workout: