As I’m moving over the hot sand and dirt paths I’m blasted
with a breeze that brings pre-heating oven temperatures across my face. Of
course the temperature is only about 109F, but it certainly feels like the
inside of an oven with the sun shining brightly adding an extra dash of singe
to my run. The insides of my lips that cover my gums are the only part of my
body that isn’t cooking. The reason for that is the wonderful and amazing
hydrologic phenomenon of evaporative cooling. As I exhale through my mouth and
nose the water vapor is instantly evaporated in the arid environment and
because of the high latent heat of evaporation of water the air around it cools
comparatively to the scorching desert heat. This is the same principle that
cools your skin when you sweat. It creates a micro-climate around my mouth and
it is through this small natural cooling process that I can channel my thoughts
to a comfortable place to keep cool on my run. It’s amazing how refreshing a
tiny bit of cool air can feel on what the National Weather Service calls an “Excessive
Heat Warning” day. It felt similar to that nice refreshing feeling that you get
when you drink a cold beverage on a hot day and your mouth is all dry. You can
feel the cool liquid just splashing its way down your esophagus and feel the
comfortable chilled fluids reaching your stomach. Just imagine that but instead
you are supplying that refreshing feeling on your gums and that feeling is
repeated constantly with each breath you take. Extreme weather calls for
extreme methods.
Of course, there are other issues to consider while running
in this heat. For example, spontaneous combustion is a serious concern. I saw
about a dozen birds that were randomly ripped to pieces along my route. Now
there could be a few possibly reasons for this. 1) There is a series of
electric poles along the route and perhaps an electric surge passed through and
vaporized the poor birds. 2) Perhaps a Dust Devil whirled its way on this path and
with the column of sand and rocks gained enough momentum to rip the birds into shreds.
3) Lastly, it could be that the birds simply had heat exhaustion and fell from
the sky traveling at terminal velocity and rupturing on impact. But ultimately,
I think the likely reason is that the molecules inside the birds’ bodies simply
said “Okay, this is it. It’s too damn hot. Let’s blow this joint!” and just
like that they exploded.
Another smart strategy to keep cool on a run is to continuously
douse water on your wrists and neck. It seems the nerves in those areas are
somehow susceptible to regulating body temperature. I remember watching a
documentary when I was younger on kangaroos and the way they are able to stay
cool in the hot Australian Outback. They just lick their forearms and let the
evaporation cool off their arms. Employing this strategy works well for humans
too. But instead of saliva I chose water from my water bottle to do the trick.
In this heat I’ll splash my wrists and neck every few minutes and let science
keep me cool. It’s only 3 miles today and I’m thankful for that. Once I get
home I immediately jump into a cold shower. Once I get out I continue to sweat
for another 30 minutes until my body returns to normal temperature.
As you can imagine, running in the desert is hard. Especially
if it’s in the middle of the day. That’s something I have to remind myself when
I hit the snooze button at 4:30 AM and choose to sleep in during the coolest
part of the day (usually mid 80s) thereby forcing me to run in the inferno of the
afternoon heat. I’ll try to remember that and if I don’t, I’ll keep these hot
weather tips in mind. I’ll also keep my fingers crossed that my molecules don’t
decide to go boom.
