Summer Running - Desert Edition

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.