Hot Hot Heat
I woke up Sunday morning,
I looked up on the wall,
The skeeters and the bedbugs
Were having a game of ball.
The score was 6 to nothing,
The skeeters were ahead,
The bedbugs hit a homerun
And knocked me out of bed!
Singin’ – Eener meener and a miner mo,
Catch a Whipper Whopper by its toe,
And if he HOLLERS, HOLLERS, HOLLERS, don’t let him go!
Singin’ – Eener meener and a miner mo!
Remember that song? I think I yelled it on the way to school every day in first grade. Something about that whipper whopper…
***
Anyhow, I did wake up this SUNDAY morning, got up, headed downstairs and let the dog out. As she’s getting older she’s like a real geriatric person with weird sleeping patterns and everything, panting all night, only sleeps well with her ibuprofen… Anyhow, so I got up at about 6:00 to put her out and stepped outside to find it was ALREADY HOT! At 6:00 AM! And I’m not talking the kind of early morning heat that makes you say, “It looks like it will be a nice day.” No. This hot was all in your face from the moment it hit the land, breaking a sweat at 6:00. Sheesh. And I live in Seattle!
That said, it was a perfect moment to be all vacay cheesy – like I’m at a resort or something, so I started doing some yoga- just the sun salutation (how appropriate) and a few other simple poses that I learned from the Wii Fit. It felt like it should- all holistic and commune-y and naturish. The next step should have been to go to the co-op for some quinoa and bulgar or something (which I’m mocking but I actually really like that stuff 🙂 ).
After communing with nature I went back up into bed and stared at Bradley until he woke up. Today is his 40th unofficial birthday (long story short- he has a 12/29 birthday that has always sucked because of its location in the year- who wants another gift to buy or cake to eat smack in between Christmas and New Years?! So we moved it to his half birthday, or really close to his half birthday), so I wanted to get our run out of the way ASAP because I wouldn’t have to worry about when we would do it, or the calories I will consume because of this day. As soon as his eyes fluttered open I asked for the run. Thankfully he said yes because it was 8:00 and already pushing 75 (remember – 75 in Seattle is hot).
{In honor of my Birthday King, I invoked the force today…}
So we stretched, got dressed and off we went.
Heat running has been hard on me. I thought for a long time I didn’t like the heat because I just don’t like to sweat. It turns out the heat offers some other fun stuff. The biggest issue for me is getting overheated and losing my breath. For some reason it’s harder for me to get my breath in the heat. I get the shallow breathing, but not the deep breaths that replenish my oxygen. The result is that a little over a mile into the run, my chest tightens down so hard that I can’t get a good breath, so then I start very intentionally deep breathing, which doesn’t go deep enough so my breathing just becomes hyperventilation and from there it turns into a panic attack.
The last time (before today) we ran, I wouldn’t let myself stop. When I got home after three miles I was dripping sweat and could feel my heartbeat all over my body, so hard, and my lungs and chest were gridiron solid. I was having a hard time breathing. I stripped down, got into my bathing suit and jumped into the pool and as soon as the cold water hit me my lungs opened up and I could breathe again. I sat submerged in the pool as my heart beat -BOOM BOOM BOOM- and I cooled off, finally getting my breath again. I learned from that day the the heat really does impact me.
I’m wondering if it’s an asthma thing- I’ve heard of exercise induced asthma and heat induced asthma. Maybe I need to explore that a little bit more with my doctor. I also want to do one of those exercise heart test things that you do on the treadmill at the doctors’ to see if I’m just pushing myself too hard, maybe, and my heart is going to explode! I don’t have a real, authentic fear of that, but it’s not a bad idea to get a clean bill of health as I continue to move forward.
***
I took my heart rate today-
Immediately post-run: 153 BPM
Ten minutes later: 99 BPM
much later (resting): 63 BPM
My active rate is a little high for fat burn. I honestly don’t know how to run slower and walking is so awkward when you try to go too fast. It’s hard to break a good sweat walking, for me. I’m super impressed, however, with my resting heart rate! I’m in the ‘good’ zone- smack between ‘excellent’ and ‘above average’! I’m pleased with that.