Blog Action Day

A runner's temperature (only when running--unless they spend ALL their non-running time in a hot tub) is about 20 degrees higher than the air temperature. This is why you see those "crazy" runners out in shorts and a singlet in 50 degree weather--that's nice and balmy. I prefer winter running myself--and I used to HATE the winter! I learned when racing my first 15K last April in Flushing, MI on an unseasonably hot (read 80 degrees!) day how much I love the winter!!! I didn't understand why I kept getting so out of breath, so dizzy, why my time was so ridiculously slow, other than the fact that the race is set in no-where-village, and I got lost. I couldn't believe there were signs as the labyrinthine course wound around farms, through sub-divisions (where the nonchalant suburbanites simply continued mowing or watering their lawn as we ran by without even looking up) around middle schools and back into another subdivision. Few people to flag where to go next, no blocked off roads. Just some orange cones every now and then. I finally asked a runner near me, "How do you know where to go???" "hhm," she was puzzled at the very question. "I live two streets down from the finish and I've done the Tax Trot for five years." Ah, I finally realize everyone (except me, that is) lived in Flushing or knew somebody from Flushing.

Well, here I was, someone who trained in winter weather and wearing a black turtle-neck and long black running pants, huffing my way to the finish--screaming, "Where's the finish line?!!!" There were almost no markers the last mile or two of the race, so I just I ran back to the start line and realized the start was not, in fact, the finish. Oh no, the start was in front of Flushing High School but the finish was behind the school on the other side of the parking lot. Silly me for thinking the finish line should be in a clearly marked, obvious place. Well, I was one of the last ones in and the heat was killing me.
I worry about the increasing frequency of these "unseasonably" hot days. What if they don't become so unseasonable anymore?

Here's what this means for runners:
Temperature Heat-stress risk 75º-85º
Heat cramps or Heat Exhaustion possible 86º-105º
Heat cramps or Heat Exhaustion likely. Heat Stroke possible. 106-115º
Heat Stroke highly likely after 120

Now add 20 degrees to each of the above. Tragedies like the Chicago Marathon may be more frequent if global warming continues at the rate it is.
No amount of PowerAde will help us then.