I'm a runner. Therefore, sometimes I do stupid things.

Some might argue that running in and of itself is a stupid thing.  Perhaps.  But apart from that, runners tend to do stupid things.  We try to hard.  We push too hard.  We injure ourselves.  We try to go too hard in the heat.

Guess which one I did this week?

Part of me wasn't wanting to share this with you because I like to think that as a slow and steady runner with 6 years of running under my shoes (5 of which have been in Florida), I have some handle on what one should or should not do in heat.  And I think that in my mind, I know what one should and should not do in heat.  So when I tried to run my long run on Monday, 7 miles, I wanted to anticipate what I thought the problems would be.  Instead, I wound up with the worst case of heat exhaustion that I have had since getting here.

Here's what I did right:

I took a sports drink and even planned to go by a drinking fountain.

I incorporated a walk interval into my run.

I reminded myself that the only way of adapting to heat is to go run in heat.

Here's what I did wrong:

I didn't go early enough.

I haven't been having enough sodium in my food.

And I believe that the final point here was the real problem (my symptoms are closer to 'salt depletion' than 'dehydration'...you can go look those up if you want.  They're kind of nasty).  Because I've been hydrated and my body temperature has been normal.  But I have not felt right since the run.  Normally, I am pretty sensitive to sodium, so I try not to have too much of it.  This time around, though, this precaution may have been the problem.

Today I had half of a bag of cheese curds for lunch.  That should help the sodium levels.

I still feel off and I'm not sure what to do.  I want to get back on the horse and run--I was already having mental blocks about completing runs in heat (hence why what should have been the Sunday run got moved to Monday).  But obviously I don't want this to get worse.  I suspect that this week will have some pool running at some point.  And I'm going to ensure that I only go early morning or in the evening to avoid the sheer evil that is Mr. Florida Sun in August.

I'm kind of annoyed, so I read stories about other runners who have suffered from heat exhaustion today.  One was a person who wanted to adapt to the heat, so she decided to run in the middle of the day on blacktop.  In summer.  In heat.  Not the best plan.  I'm not gloating over this, but it has been useful to remember that I am by no means the only one to do dumb things like this.  In fact, part of being a runner is that probably you sometimes do dumb things.  Besides going out running, of course.