Truth is, as an outside runner, I deal with the elements about 300 days a years, nothing to write about warm days, even cold, freeze-till-you-can't-feel-your-face days. But the ones that make you suffer. You remember those.
Add this little spell to the notch. As I type this, in D.C. it's a high of 40C, and through my life, I always wondered what 108F feels like. Well, with humidex, that's what I just walked through an hour ago trudging from a grocery store a few blocks away to R.'s condo. We walked a block to pick up dry cleaning/ice coffee and while it's tolerable with the right dress, it's not ideal for exercising.
I've felt the heat, even trained through it in the years gone by. Heck, just search "humidex" on my blog and you'll see me run races (set a sub-20 5K years ago on a crazy hot day), do long runs and sweat buckets.
Just this past week, knowing I'd be in D.C. for this heat wave, I decided to cram in my miles in Toronto. Problem was, we weren't immune to the heat. I did a 10K Tuesday night, a 10K Wednesday at 4:30 a.m., followed by 16K that Wednesday night. By the next morning, when I only had enough energy to do a few miles, the heat had set in.
The past two days, I've been getting used to the heat, a 5K at 6:30 a.m. yesterday in D.C.. Today, bad me, I slept in till 6:30, did an hour of work, and ran 7K. It hurt, it was nice to have water to douse my body in.
The bonus, at least I'm up to 40 miles for this week. It may be tough, but my body's slowly getting used to it. The hard part will be in the next few weekends as I try to go long in this weather.
The smart advice I'll take: Go run early, drink lots, get your salts in and just be content to get a run in.
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