Is it fall yet?

Seriously. This heat and humidity can take a hike. We've had crazy humidity again this week, culminating in some serious thunderstorms on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. As you guessed, my Tuesday run got canned.

I really can't afford to cancel too many runs, as I really need to work on getting my fitness level back up in order to start training for that 10K in early October. Right now 5Ks are still challenging. Uhoh. But at the same time, I'm actually looking forward to running some longer distances again!

And so, I barely woke up to my alarm this morning and rolled out of bed to run before the day's heat set in. I ran at 6:30 a.m. in 20C... 28C with the humidity. Blech. Thankfully there's some relief in sight for the weekend. Hooray!

Either way, the weather here - hot or cold - is better than it was down in the 'States two weeks ago. I was visiting friends in Northern Maryland and it was ridiculously hot. I was up at 6 am to run one morning and it felt like I was running in hot soup. I had to take walk breaks in order to actually get my breath back. When I got back to the cabin, my gear was sopping wet. The weather was so disgusting that I couldn't bring myself to run again two days later. It's too bad I can't find the historical weather for that run... I'd love to put it in with the run info. I bet it'd be a record for me.

The Heat Beat Me

I couldn't do it this morning. Nope, no early morning run.

I spent 4 hours outside, on my feet, in the 40C+ weather as a volunteer at Bluesfest (our local monster music festival) last night. I was just exhausted last night and probably sweated off my body weight in those four hours. I just couldn't bring myself to get up at 6 to run this morning. The thought of running in the soupy air made me want to hermit myself in the air conditioned goodness of our apartment.

I checked the forecast last night before making my decision. The weatherman promised "cooler" weather on Friday: 28C and showers. Postponing my run to Friday morning was a no-brainer. It's hard to believe that's "cooler" than what we're going through now!

Beating the heat

It's so hot.

There I said it.

Most of you probably already know that we're in the middle of a heat wave. Yesterday, the temperaturehit 34C (45C with the humidex) and it's supposed to be like this for the rest of the week! I'm glad summer's finally here after our rainy June, but it's almost like someone flipped a switch.

The biggest challenge for me now is how to run in this heat. We haven't had a summer with this kind of extreme heat in about 5 years, so this is very much uncharted territory for me. In the past, I just moved my run to the next day... but that's not an option when we're talking 4-5 days straight of this weather. Other times I've run in the late evening, like around 8-9 p.m. - but again, it's still hot then!

Today I thought I'd get up early and run before things really started to bake. I headed out the door shortly after 6:30 a.m. It was already 32C with the humidex! Crazy! Thankfully I'm still running 30-35 minutes, so it wasn't too unbearable. And there was a good breeze and the sun wasn't totally up yet. I think I may have to head out even earlier on Thursday morning!

How do you beat the heat? Short of cancelling my run altogether, I can't really think of any other ways to avoid running in the sauna.