Saturday, July 15, 2006

It's the humidity

I don't think humidity should be measured in percent. Why? I'm pretty sure we had MORE than maximum humidity for our long run this morning. It rained overnight, and in the morning all the windows in the house were steamed up, and it was so foggy outside that the sun was just a pale disk in the sky.

Weatherbug says the humidity was "only" 100 percent, but I'm quite sure it was more than that. Much more. I promised my training partner David that I would make sure he got in more than 10 miles for our long run, but 9.7 miles (with some walk breaks) was all I was good for. All my clothing was dripping wet. I was wringing out my ponytail and the sweatrag-bandana that I had on my wrist. David's shoes were squishing with each step as if he had gone wading.

If I can't change the humidity system, at least I should get extra credit mileage for running in beastly conditions, shouldn't I?



Update: I may have been feeling chipper after swimming and riding yesterday, or even after swimming and a short run the day before, but this morning's run in the sauna exhausted me! I ended up taking a 90-minute nap this afternoon. After I watched today's Tour de France stage, of course.

It sure is a good thing that the run leg is last in triathlons, or I'd start to get really worried about 26.2 miles at the end of the day on November 4th.

Sheesh! I was very, very diligent about rehydrating and taking electrolytes on our run, and the temperatures weren't terribly high (about 80*F when we finished), but now, 7 hours later, after a meal and a snack and plenty of fluids, I'm still down a full pound of body water weight. No wonder I was wiped out!

6 comments:

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

Right there with ya on the humidity! I've come to use my drip factor as a measure of how good a run I've had. By this standard, all summer long runs are fantabulous, but winter run suck. LOL!

I swear sometimes I come home so thoroughly soaked that I can't help but wonder if it's really all sweat. Maybe there's some condensation going on as well.

Kim said...

The humidity level goes to 11.

Bolder said...

humidity is good.

makes your stronger for Florida.

send some my way.

humidity: 29%
temperature: 97.6F
time: 6:33pm
altitude: mile-high plus 60

Nancy Toby said...

I wish I could ship it out there! Instead, it seems that you're shipping your temperatures out here - 95*F plus forecast several days next week.

And our humidity will stay the same.

Thanks a bunch, pal.

Dr. Iron TriFeist :) said...

There's some extra humidity here in Florida, too. Nancy, can we FedEx this stuff overnight? I would do that for Bold, since he's always here to help us. It's the least we could do. :)

Humid air contains less oxygen than dry air so it's like combining high altitude training with heat/humidity acclimation, right? That's as close as we get to counting as double.

jeanne said...

It was truly gruesome saturday morning. My SOCKS were dripping wet by the end. and we started at 6 a.m.!! what a nasty run that was... f'n COLORADO!!!