running and humidity

JoRocka

atypicalsmith wrote: »

sofaking6 wrote: »

I moved to the desert to get away from humidity but we have the edge of a hurricane sitting over us and it's really really (relatively) muggy (AND it won't rain at all). I even felt it in my living room this morning, a regular short workout had me pouring sweat and I almost fell asleep during the stretch afterwards.

So my advice is move to the desert, I guess

No, no! I visited my sister in Nevada and was never so depressed in my life! The same flat, dry land; the same purple mountains for miles and miles and miles, forever, in the background, the never-ending heat - no, no, no! Give me North Carolina any time, with its beautiful mountain trails, rivers, lakes, beaches, a little bit of something for everyone.

Makes me sad you think the desert is only flat.

JoRocka

Pct in southern California, part of the high Desert.

JenAndSome

JoRocka wrote: »

Pct in southern California, part of the high Desert.

That's beautiful but I would be slightly afraid to run there. I've not tripped so far while running but sure enough....

JoRocka

I used to run those trails on horse back. Rio was a clumsie motherf8cker to.

Used to scare the *kitten* out of me. Something worse than running them was being 5 feet up in the air on horse back and then feeling a tired horse trip.

Talk about gut wrenching.

But yeah- it is beautiful country up there.

scottb81

Timorous_Beastie wrote: »

scottb81 wrote: »

The good news is that your body adapts. You still have to slow down and will sweat a lot but you can adapt to where you can run fairly comortable at 100 degrees with a 72 degree dewpoint and maintain a reasonable pace for 30 to 40 min. After about 30 to 40 min, at least for me, overheating begins to be a problem.

The bad news is that your body adapts just in time for the cold weather to set in.

Physically it only takes about 2 weeks. Mentally its a different story. :-)

mbaker566

I'm looking forward to it. I feel like it will make my lungs stronger.

some parts of the desert is flat and other parts are beautiful

sunset by faith, on Flickr

happyface by faith, on Flickr

baby tree by faith, on Flickr

this was all prerun
the next trip we take will be from Portland to San Diego, I look forward to running early in the morning while the new hubbie sleeps. also looking forward to not dying while we do hikes. my lungs burn so easily

SueInAz

7lenny7 wrote: »

SueInAz wrote: »

One poster stated that when your sweat dries instantly you stay cooler, but it's not so. It's the air blowing against the water on your body that cools you down. When your sweat dries instantly you don't get as cooled off. So for that, humidity is better. Once the monsoon season gets into full swing here, mornings will be better.

It is so. The cooling effect of sweating comes from the transformation of the water portion of our sweat from liquid to vapor. It takes heat to do this. To the extent you can accelerate the evaporation, you increase the cooling effect. When the wind blow evaporation is increased and the cooling effect is increased (it's not because air blows across the water, it's because the air increases evaporation). All else being equal, the higher the humidity, the slower the evaporation of sweat and the less cooling effect is achieved. This is why the higher the humidity is, the higher the perceived temperature because it slows evaporation and retards cooling. Many weather forecasts include this.

Read this article, particularly the part about humidity
http://healthyliving.azcentral.com/evaporating-sweat-cool-down-9657.html

It's physics.

I don't care as much about the physics as the reality of what I feel. Running on asphalt at 80° when it's single digit humidity feels more brutal than 80° at 50% humidity when I have a sheen of sweat that keeps me feeling cooler.