Here in Charlotte, the weather has been warm, and the sun has been shining.  Some may call this weather “beautiful.”  Those people are not me.  I know, I must sound crazy.  But I overheat very easily.  When I am running and the temperature rises above 54 degrees, I shut down.  That’s why I don’t run races between May and October.  I complain about the ice and the cold keeping me from running outdoors, but in actuality, if there is no rain or ice out there, I am fine to run outdoors in 20 degree temps.  I have plenty of gear for cold weather running.  Maybe not for January in Boston running, but good enough for North Carolina winters.  What I can’t do is run naked when it’s 70 or 75 degrees.  There’s no way to get cooler when you overheat and are wearing next to nothing.  You can put on more stuff when it’s cold, but it’s never the other way around.

On Saturday, I did 13.1 miles at 7am.  It was perfect, but I did my cooldown a little faster than necessary because my human thermometer skills were telling me that the temperature was creeping precariously close to 54 degrees, so I needed to finish the run and get indoors.  The rest of the day was ideal for sitting outdoors having a beer with family and friends, but for running- too hot.  I saw tons of people running all over our neighborhood all weekend, basking in the  70 degree temperatures.  I actually saw some lady wearing long sleeves.  Now that is crazy.  Maybe she has the exact opposite problem I do.

This evening I did my ladder run indoors.  Yep, all that complaining I have been doing about the indoor track, and I choose to run there when everyone else is running outside.  That was the upside to me.  Fewer people on the track + the air conditioner blasting = happy me.  One lady came really close to ruining my good mood by walking the OPPOSITE way on the track in the INNER lane.  I gave her the stink eye and luckily, she only did that one lap.  I did a 2.5 mile warmup, the ladder run (1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1 minutes at 5k pace with 60 second jogs in between- total of about 3.5 miles) then picked up Super Baby from the child care center and went outside to do another mile or so with the Power Hour crew.  I have basically had to forego Power Hour because of my shoulder, which will have a diagnosis in 8 days woohoo! By the time we went outside, the temperature had dipped back into the low 50’s so it was all good.   Super Baby hung out in the middle of the track with crazy Becky, the retired cheerleader/slave driver/over achieving runner/cyclist.  She screamed out drills and forced everyone to sprint until they hurled, while Super Baby watched on in awe/fear.

It’s amazing how little tolerance for heat I have. Maybe it has something to do with my allergy to extreme changes in body temperature.  No really, I am dead serious.  When I was 10, I got mono.  After that, perhaps coincidentally, I developed an allergy wherein I would develop hives when I got really hot or really cold.  This made swimming in Florida in the winter somewhat difficult.  Within a couple minutes of starting a workout, I would be hot and would break out in hives.  After practice, we would hop out of the pool and into the frigid (for Florida- 50 degrees) night air.  So I would break out in hives again.  It took a few months but a specialist a couple hours away figured out my problem.  I guess that 12 or 13 people in the country have it.  I never grew out of it, but I take some magic pill that keeps me from getting hives, and in turn, allows me to exercise for more than 6 minutes at a time.  Nonetheless, I think I have some lingering inability to withstand heat when I am physically exerting myself.  It’s a good thing one of my dreams has never been to marathon in Missouri in July.

Tomorrow’s workout is 6 miles then some hill sprints.  I will probably do a 5-6 mile recovery jog on Wednesday, take Thursday off, do a 6-8 mile tempo run (uncomfortable pace) on Friday, a 5 mile jog with a couple sprints on Saturday, and a 12 mile run on Sunday.  We are just under four weeks out from the Quintilles half marathon and I am starting to get nervous.  Only two more weeks of really hard training left. Let’s hope the weather stops being so “beautiful,” or I will be running inside a lot.