Cooling down in the creek

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

I was driving home from a particularly sweaty workout and had decided that I’d leave my drenched t-shirt in the trunk for the ride. Ahead, I noticed a van with a pushed-in tail gait – loser in a contest with a mailbox, and which I recognized as Holly. I passed her and she pulled in behind me at which point I called her on her cell phone…only after coming to a safe stop at a street light, of course.

“You stalking me?” I asked. She began looking in her rearview mirror for me and then noticed me in front. We gabbed until the light changed, but she pulled along side to turn at the next intersection. Since our windows were down, we conversed without cells.

“Hey…John Locke…are you naked in that car? Because it sure looks like it from up here,” she yelled.

“We don’t need no clothes on the island,” I replied from my low perch in my Honda.

She got the green arrow to go and pulled away, but when I looked to my right – it’s four lanes at this intersection – the woman in the car next to me smiled and said, “so are you naked, John Locke?”

Well…no…of course I was not naked. I suppose though, this was the most humid day of the year. If it can go beyond 100% humidity…it was. I had started the run thinking maybe an hour, but figured I’d play it by how I felt. I’d done a double yesterday…the 65-minute run followed by the ‘survival workout’ with Kim and was feeling both. I was soaked through by the 20-minute mark and the shoes were squishy at 40 minutes. Still, I felt pretty good and decided to take an hour run.

There is a particularly deep creek running through the park to the Chagrin River near the conclusion of my run and the water has been running high from all of the recent rain. I had decided yesterday to take a dip…clothes and shoes on…to cool off and rinse the sweat from my shoes. I’d come out of the creek and jogged easily to the car the day before and it seemed like a good idea again today. In fact, unlike what I’d expected, the shoes, though completely saturated, were actually easy to run in and I was starting to think there were other places throughout the park where I could take dips in the middle of runs. Hmmm.

Seriously, though, there is no better way to combat rising body temperatures that immersion in cold water and I like doing unusual things so why not multiple dips during hot, humid runs. I think I’m on to something…again.

Anyway, I reached the creek and climbed in. There is a lot of shale in this particular portion, which makes for good perches from which to lay back and just let the cool water wash over your entire body. I floated for a couple of minutes, letting the water bring my body temperature down before climbing out and finishing the run. As I was approaching the car – only 5 minutes from the creek – I was thinking that I could easily run another half hour. If nothing else, it deludes me into thinking I can run forever on hot days.

Run duration: 60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140.

Calories burned during workout: 1020.