Summer heat is no friend of runners

I love summer.

The cookouts. The watersports. The gardening. The camping. In fact, it's really hard for me to find much about summer that I don't like.

That is, until I took up running. Now my favorite season brings me my least favorite weather conditions for running.

Traditionally, I have just avoided the heat. I ran early, very late (because it's often hot until 9 or 10 p.m.) or in the gym on the dreaded treadmill. But this year I want to run the Deseret News Marathon. And while I have never run any of the races on the 24th of July, I once sat on the parade route, completely stationary and eating as many snow cones as I could afford, and, still, I thought I might need medical help to deal with my heat stroke.

July, in case you have central air, is smoking hot in Utah.

So this summer I took a different approach. I have tried in the last month to acclimate myself to exercising in the heat. I figured if I could do hot yoga, I could run a few miles in 98-degree weather.

My first afternoon run — four miles at 2 p.m. — did not go well. I didn't take the temperature on the surface of my face, but I'm sure it could have melted metal. I was red-faced and thirsty for hours after the run. And, obviously, I ran almost a minute per mile slower.

See, heat is not a runner's friend. It forces us to deal with two of the most dangerous situations — dehydration and overheating.

I consulted some trainers and Web sites regarding the best way to improve my ability to run in the heat. No surprise, they advised the only way to get better at it was to actually torture myself on a consistent basis. One Web site said that it took about two weeks, while others said it might take longer.

So while I wanted to run in that cool morning air, I waited until I could barely stand the heat while parked in front of the television watching Oprah — and then I went for a run.

The first few outings were brutal.

Quite simply, running in the heat is a lot of work. Runners always have to be cognizant of the conditions, i.e. air quality, safety and of course, the weather. But to run even a few miles in 90-plus degree heat is something that anyone hoping to avoid problems has to plan for. So 24-hours a day I had to make sure I was drinking water. One person told me that while I worked out, I needed to be drinking something that would replace the electrolytes I was losing.