Quote:
Originally Posted by Crapshoot
My quick advice is to change the time of your run (if you can do that) - ie, I really like running at 7/8 PM or so, but I'm a single dude next to a park who lives in the Bay Area. When its 50 degrees in the "winter", I try and run at 6 or so when there is a little more light available, even if sometimes feels colder. I don't know if you have that option of essentially running at dusk, but it can help.
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Running at dusk might help in the Bay Area, but it's not very helpful when it's hot and humid here. It's fine this time of year (heat index is only 78 right now at 8:45pm.) Today I would have run around 7:30pm but we had dinner plans with out of town guests. In another month-ish, running in the evening won't be all that much help. On many nights from June to September, you can walk outside at 10pm and start sweating pretty much immediately, and it's so humid that it doesn't dry.
Sure, I can avoid the direct sunlight of the day by running in the evening, but in truth, early morning is the only option to avoid the *heat* once it really gets going, and my wife needs me on kid duty then most days. There will be some days when I can get a 5am run in, but that'll be the exception, not the norm. No, my main options are the treadmill or dealing with the heat as best as I can. I'm used to drinking a good bit of water, so I'm sure that's helpful. In the final analysis, I suspect that the answer for me is to follow the tips Alan posted and just lower my expectations with regard to speed a bit from late Spring to mid Fall. Being a numbers-oriented guy, that's not the answer I *want* to hear, but it's probably the correct one.