Did you read through the Heat Exhaustion/Stroke symptoms article? I know, you have to click through consecutive pages, which is a bit time-consuming!
Since we're all different, we'll each have a different threshold and set of symptoms. For example, a few weeks ago, I had a 10K race in high heat and humidity. I knew I was in trouble inside mile 6 and headed straight to the medical tent after crossing the finish line and collapsed just as the medic reached for my arm. I was promptly treated for heat stroke.
Last Saturday, I had a mere 5 mile run, and it was about 76F/50% humidity at 6:30 a.m. About 45 minutes later, the temperature was pushing 80F, there was no cloud cover to protect us on our route, and the humidity was rising. Being in full sun all that time, I started feeling nauseated; worse, I was getting a nagging headache and felt like my head was heating up. Fortunately, my buddy and I were only a couple of blocks away from our finish.
Sunday, I had 8.5 miles to do, but there was a lovely breeze and lots of cloud cover. It was about 75F and maybe 45% humidity. We also had the advantage of two water stops along the route and long stretches of shady woods, so we could either cool off or stay relatively cool. At the finish, my buddy and I cooled off in the kid's water playscape in the park where we had our run. What was really weird is that my buddy was sweating profusely and drank about 40 ozs of water, while I wasn't sweating all that much and only went through 12 ozs of water.
The difference was in the intensity of the sun and the humidity level. Your body's cooling mechanism isn't as efficient in high humidity.
Comment Reply
Did you read through the Heat Exhaustion/Stroke symptoms article? I know, you have to click through consecutive pages, which is a bit time-consuming!
Since we're all different, we'll each have a different threshold and set of symptoms. For example, a few weeks ago, I had a 10K race in high heat and humidity. I knew I was in trouble inside mile 6 and headed straight to the medical tent after crossing the finish line and collapsed just as the medic reached for my arm. I was promptly treated for heat stroke.
Last Saturday, I had a mere 5 mile run, and it was about 76F/50% humidity at 6:30 a.m. About 45 minutes later, the temperature was pushing 80F, there was no cloud cover to protect us on our route, and the humidity was rising. Being in full sun all that time, I started feeling nauseated; worse, I was getting a nagging headache and felt like my head was heating up. Fortunately, my buddy and I were only a couple of blocks away from our finish.
Sunday, I had 8.5 miles to do, but there was a lovely breeze and lots of cloud cover. It was about 75F and maybe 45% humidity. We also had the advantage of two water stops along the route and long stretches of shady woods, so we could either cool off or stay relatively cool. At the finish, my buddy and I cooled off in the kid's water playscape in the park where we had our run. What was really weird is that my buddy was sweating profusely and drank about 40 ozs of water, while I wasn't sweating all that much and only went through 12 ozs of water.
The difference was in the intensity of the sun and the humidity level. Your body's cooling mechanism isn't as efficient in high humidity.
Here's an important section of that article:
page 2 - http://www.emedicinehealth.com/heat_exhaustion_and_heat_stroke/page2_em.htm
page 3 - http://www.emedicinehealth.com/heat_exhaustion_and_heat_stroke/page3_em.htm
Hope this helps.
July 14, 2008 - 4:39pmThis Comment
Reply