It Was 107 In Dallas Today How the Hell Do You Do It?

Temp means nothing. Humidity means nothing. Dew point means everything. Cloud cover and shade is also a big issue.

It's been 90s with dew points in the low 70s here in Louisville. That's painful. 100s with dew points in the 60s? Not as bad in my book.

Due to work I run 4 days a week at 2pm. Work 6am-2pm. 2nd job 4/5pm-7/8pm. Mostly run between jobs. It's hard to run at 8pm when you got to get up at 5:30 the next day and you're already dead tired from the day. Usually it's 10-13 at 2pm, then another 3-5 at 8pm. Getting in around 80-110 miles a week.

How do you cope? Drink water and sponge. Run slower. Get a nice tan...:)

Alan

One upside to running through the summer, when you do get to favorable climates in the fall, Texas distance runners have been known to rip a fast one.

Going back to the days when Texas actually had distance runners i.e. Jeff Wells, John Lodwick, Kyle Heffner, all 2:10 guys (back when 2:10 meant something) they trained through the Texas heat, then came the fall and "bang" a 2:10-2:12 performance.

On the womens side you had Francie Laurieu (sic) and most recent Melissa Christian running 1:14 at Philly last year.

Problem now, Texas has no distance runners of note since "wimps" like Wejo (ha!)and Culpepper left.

Moes Tavern wrote:

One upside to running through the summer, when you do get to favorable climates in the fall, Texas distance runners have been known to rip a fast one.

Going back to the days when Texas actually had distance runners i.e. Jeff Wells, John Lodwick, Kyle Heffner, all 2:10 guys (back when 2:10 meant something) they trained through the Texas heat, then came the fall and "bang" a 2:10-2:12 performance.

On the womens side you had Francie Laurieu (sic) and most recent Melissa Christian running 1:14 at Philly last year.

Problem now, Texas has no distance runners of note since "wimps" like Wejo (ha!)and Culpepper left.

Oh, yes, that's the reward for running through a brutal Texas summer. That first week of real fall weather, you feel absolutely unstoppable. I love that "I could run forever" feeling that comes with the first breath of fall air.

It's supposed to hit the low 80's here in Seattle later in the week, but then the morning clouds will knock it back down to mid-70's. Such is summer next to the World's biggest air-conditioner (Pacific O)....

When I lived in Djibouti the daytime temps would routinely climb above 120 with a heat index often over 150. That was the hottest place I've ever been, even hotter than the Gulf states. Guys would come down to Djibouti from Qatar in August and say "damn it's hot here!"

I did not run outside during the summer months

new england winters wrote:

well how about from November to February when we're freezing our asses off and still running?

That's completely different than running in the south in the summer. I've lived in the NE for 5 years and Miami, FL for 7 years and I can tell you that hot summer weather in Miami hinders your ability to run much, much more than cold weather in the NE. At least, if you're trying to run more than 40 miles per week, that is.

It's a toss up between running at 5 a.m. and dealing with the humidity or running at 8 p.m. when it's still over 100. I actually prefer the 8 p.m. run because it's drier, and the sun is going away. If you throw in the sun, the heat is much worse since the actual temperature is taken in the shade. Lately, however, I get major calf cramps if I run late and then go to bed.

I ran Friday afternoon when it was still 105 at the airport by my house. I then ran Saturday afternoon when it was 102. I got up early Sunday and thought that my run would be easy because the sun wasn't up and it was only 80. I had to quit at 8 miles because I was so sick to my stomach. It's just impossible to stay properly hydrated in these conditions, especially if you sweat like I do.

The problem is that it's hard to get acclimated anymore. When I was growing up, I was outside working on a ranch all day. Now, I go from my air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned office and back again. I'm only outside in the heat to run, walk the dog, and mow the yard.

By the way, I was in Little Rock about 10 days ago for soccer nationals and ran along the Arkansas River. Although I finished by 9 a.m., I was hurting pretty bad as it was already in the 90s with high humidity. I played golf one afternoon beginning at 4 p.m. and had soaked through my shirt and golf club by the 2nd hole.

The three most difficult places I've ever run in during the summer was Houston, San Antonio, and Little Rock.

duck feet wrote:

Oh, yes, that's the reward for running through a brutal Texas summer. That first week of real fall weather, you feel absolutely unstoppable. I love that "I could run forever" feeling that comes with the first breath of fall air.

I have never felt more in shape in my life than the first two weeks of the fall semester my senior year in college after training my ass off in Austin all summer. I felt like I could drop anyone on the team at command in practice. When I was running close to 28 minutes for 10k I didn't feel the same. But I wonder if some of it had to do with going from 95 degree heat (Austin has got much better running than Dallas) to 80 degrees in New Haven.

[quote]txRUNNERgirl wrote:

"I love Texas, but I'm fairly certain I won't stay here"

please stay there

Freezing rain is the worst - you just can't dress for it. If it's accumulating on the ground, it becomes downright dangerous.

I went out for a run at 5:15 a.m. It was so hot the birds were using pot holders to pick worms out of the dirt.

I just left Dallas for two weeks for a trip to Oregon. When I left it was pretty nice only 97 or 98. You can run fine in that weather just by drink some water, but when the temp. starts climbing up over 105 thats when running starts getting dangerous in my opinion. It's going to be a shock going back to Texas, the high here is lower than the low back in Big D.

This is quite hot:

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/OEDR/2003/7/8/DailyHistory.html

as others have said, cold has no comparison here... you can always deal with cold by throwing on more clothes. with the exception of those rare days when there is freezing rain - you can pretty much as you wish.

when it is really hot and humid i find that i start to struggle after an hour and fifteen minutes

like others, I have dealt with it and you certainly get 'heat trained'... but still it doesn't mean a lot of the runs are enjoyable.

best solution: move to some place that actually has nice weather

i remember being in texas in the summer - obviously it isn't just running that is affected, nobody feels like doing anything outside, what fun is that?

Here's what blows about Dallas.... the whole thing... "well it's so nice in Dallas in Winter" is a huge fallacy. 35 degrees here feels like hell. Not sure if it's the humidity or the extreme wind, but it goes straight to your bones.

Dallas sucks.

anEconomist wrote:

i remember being in texas in the summer - obviously it isn't just running that is affected, nobody feels like doing anything outside, what fun is that?

Then you were around a bunch of losers. Obviously there are rare extremes that present a real health hazzard, but 99.9% of the time, people who let the weather keep them from doing something are just looking for an excuse.

notsohotmyself wrote:

This is quite hot:

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/OEDR/2003/7/8/DailyHistory.html

Wow! I didnt know that was possible. There are points in the day where it is 105 degree's with a dewpoint of 95. Wow, wow and one more wow. Just when i thought Austin was hot............

Corpus Christi running it super tuff! Most years it's only in the low 90's for about 8 months out of the year. Matter of fact Dallas is 400 miles north of us and always hotter than us except for winter. Really, I don't care what the thermometer says, it's a lot hotter down here. Humidity is 80+ 275 days a year. Even when the index says it's hotter in Dallas it's still feels hotter in Corpus.

Yeah yeah, I know you don't believe me. Alls I can say is come down here. One last thing if you live on the Island it actually does feels cooler.

Corpus Christi running it super tuff! Most years it's only in the low 90's for about 8 months out of the year. Matter of fact Dallas is 400 miles north of us and always hotter than us except for winter. Really, I don't care what the thermometer says, it's a lot hotter down here. Humidity is 80+ 275 days a year. Even when the index says it's hotter in Dallas it's still feels hotter in Corpus.

Yeah yeah, I know you don't believe me. Alls I can say is come down here. One last thing if you live on the Island it actually does feels cooler.