Unfortunately this isn't the most organized or focused blog, but I had two things on my mind that I wanted to share.
The first thing is the heat. Let's make that HEAT !!! Sunday morning I couldn't sleep because of my heat rash which was acquired even though I've switched my runs to early morning. I was up at 3am and decided that I might as well go running. I happened to be visiting my son's home in Zionsville, IN. That's about 200 mi north of my home. I checked the weather on my iPhone as I went out the door. Since I had to switch the location on the weather app I saw the stats for Evansville (home). It was in the high 80s --- AT 3AM! It was 68 in Zionsville and Zionsville was trying to catch up with Evansville humidity . . . 65%! By the time I was at the end of his street - <200m - I was sweating profusely.
That day we had a big party for my newly adopted grandson (a story unrelated to running that I'm going to have to share some time) at a nearby park that was a junction for a lot of street and trail runners. It was 96.5 in the direct sun when we arrived. The humidity had dropped slightly, but was still high. I saw numerous runners go by risking their lives! None of them had anything on their head to protect from the direct sun and not a single person had a water bottle or hydration with them. One man stopped in the shade of our shelter house (>10 degrees cooler than outside) to stretch before heading home. He told me that he lived about 4 miles away. This was his turn around point. It was almost 1pm. The heat of the day. As he stood up to leave I noticed that he didn't have any hydration. I asked him why he didn't have water with him. He said "it's only 4 miles home." I just looked at him. (Remember, I'm 66 years old, so I can give that "yeah, sure!" look and get away with it.) He had no response. He got the message. He said something nice and started his run home. Hopefully he won't do that again . . . but probably will.
IN THIS HEAT . . . PLEASE DON'T RUN AROUND THE BLOCK WITHOUT HYDRATION!!!! Especially if you must run in the heat of the day.
Running in the heat of the day brings me to my second and totally unimportant item for all of you, but one of great importance to me that I just wanted to share with someone.
The last week of July I'm going to do my first ultimate run - 86km - in the Ozark Mts of Arkansas. All of the info says that summer is the best time. I know I can do the first 50km without problem (assuming normal conditions). I built a 43km and 61km escape into my plans. I'll be getting some of the most difficult terrain out of the way in the first 25km. Starting at the 16km point (10mi - an access point) there is 8km (5mi) of rugged terrain where, on a topographical map, the lines are so close together that they're hard to count.
I'm really excited about the run. Two of my kids and their spouses got me a ResQLink. That is a PRB -"Personal Rescue Beacon" - that, when activated, transmits an international distress signal that is picked up around the world and sends out GPS coordinates. From what I understand, if you have a clear sky-view so the GPS connects with the satellites, and are in the continental US, they can locate you within a few meters almost immediately. If you run trails through wilderness areas, even if you are within a few miles of civilization, you should have a ResQLink. I'll obviously blog and post pictures in August.
Great running!
Russ
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