hot, humid, "trail" run

I ran with the Reston Runners on a "trail" run this morning.

We are in the middle of a heat wave here, the 7:00 temp was 77F with 79% humidity. We started at about 7:05, ran about 13.5 miles in a loop, and finished in the 9:30 neighborhood (I forgot to look at my watch when I finished). The finish temp was about 87F with 59% humidity. The overall high today was almost 100F.

I drank over three bottles of water and some gatorade and I still lost 6 pounds over my starting weight. I was completely soaked and my shoes squished with water! The good news (and there always is, isn't there?) was that I was still perspiring and absorbing the liquids I was drinking, so I wasn't dehydrated as I so often am during these hot-weather runs.

It was a "trail" run because about 5 miles of the run was on the W&OD trail. Otherwise it was all sidewalks.

I spent the rest of the day drinking water, and as of 10pm I am still not quite back to normal...


After the run I saw something I had never seen before. I was stretching and saw a big bird go into a tree nearby. This was not some pigeon, but a big bird that didn't belong in a tree - it looked like an owl perhaps or a hawk - I just didn't get a good look at the head. It fluttered around inside the tree, down below the branch line, and then back up. I thought perhaps it was injured because of the way it was acting so I went closer to investigate. When I got within 15 feet of the tree, a chimpunk leapt out of the branches and ran for the tall grass. In an instant a hawk dropped from the tree and was on top of him. The hawk glanced at me, then carried his breakfast away with him into the tall trees.