Heat Stroke Run

With a long weekend a head of me, I woke up Saturday morning with a 3 hour run on my breakfast plate.  I headed out the door into the sweltering heat.  Not too bad, though, as I headed down the street towards the park.  Even though the temperature jumps about 10 degrees once you hit the trails, it still wasn't awful.  After climbing more than 1400 feet, I was headed down the backside of the mountain when things started to unravel.

I typically carry a single water bottle...today was no exception.  As I'm heading down, I came across a woman sitting under the only tree around for miles (literally). I stopped and asked if she was okay.  She wasn't and was suffering from the heat...severely! I gave her my gatorade and waited with her till the rescue team arrived.  Once the first paramedic showed up roughly 10-15 minutes later, I continued on my run with a bone-dry water bottle.

I made it to the parking lot at the bottom of the hill still feeling fine and chatted with the rescue team who had pulled 4 people out of the park so far that day.  I'm 5 miles from my front door and it's roughly 115 outside at this point and I have nothing to drink.  No worries, right?...

Well, that's what I thought, but less than a mile later my thought process drastically changed.  I completely bonked! My legs slowed, lungs burned, breathing became harder, stomach started aching, and I was getting dizzy.  I made it to the canal before my body completely decided that running any further wasn't going to happen.  I walked to the park just off the canal and refilled my water bottle which re-engized me for about a 1/2 mile.  I ended up having to walk the last 2.5 of 3 miles because that's all I could do as I continued getting dizzier. By the time I got home, I had died twice, was dizzy and suffering from a mild heat stroke. It took a couple of hours of Kerry taking care of me, but I finally pulled out of it.  Needless to say Sunday was spent swimming laps and inside on the treadmill.

I'm just not a HOT weather kind of guy! Till next time...