Foolish Hollywood Run in Humidity

Yesterday I was down in Hollywood, Florida visiting my father. I decided to go on a run around my childhood neighborhood, something that I had never felt comfortable doing before. The running course was easy enough to devise: I planned it looking at my cellphone map of the area while at a turnpike rest stop on the way. Still, without using my MapMyRun application, I wouldn't know the exact distance I covered until I got back to Gainesville.

I made an enormous, stupid mistake by choosing the morning hours to do my run. The temperature ranged from 80 to 83 degrees, an acceptable range. But I allowed myself to run with the humidity an unbearable 82-85%. Very foolish. I finished my 4.14 mile run in 38:08, but my recovery was difficult. The humidity caused excessive sweating and cramping, and I couldn't hold down the G2 drink I had consumed during the run to rehydrate myself. Eventually I improved, but I was still more tired than usual throughout the day. I had better not try running under hot, excessively humid conditions anymore!

Still, having said that, I also am happy to report that I enjoyed the actual run through my old neighborhood...well, maybe not so happy: the humidity was starting to get to me badly there at the end. And although I have run much further recently in Gainesville, Sunday morning's run was the longest distance I had covered in south Florida since 1976. I think that my future trips to Hollywood will feature the same general running course, but under vastly different weather conditions. I doubt that I would have had any problem yesterday had I done what I do in Gainesville: wait for the humidity to inevitably drop over the course of the morning...