Centurion!

Exercising in over 100 degree weather - Garmin keeps me safe

It was a first yesterday, Seattle WA hit 103. The impact of that sentence is lessened if you do not know that Seattle has only once, previously in recorded history dating back to 1891, hit the century mark. Being someone who has been born and raised in the cool green damp of the Pacific Northwest I found myself laughing at the enormity of the heat when leaving the air-conditioned environs of work or my truck. Heat, yes Heat with a capital H.

I have been warned about working out in high temperatures but I really wanted to keep my workout going. How can I keep myself safe, and accomplish the mission of completing my daily workout. The answer is somewhat apparent - Water and electrolytes - but there was a missing ingredient. Heart rate.
When you work out your body uses energy - one of the byproducts of this is heat. Normally perspiration is very effective at cooling the body, but as temperatures rise the efficiency of that cooling mechanism decreases. A response to the inability to cool one's self is a faster heart rate. a faster heart rate moves the blood around the body and much like a radiator carrying that heat to the surface of the skin where it radiates away - what happens when the outside temperature is warmer than the core temperature in your body? Well it's not that simple because sweat along with a breeze will cool you to below ambient, but the tolerance for heat buildup lowers when you throw physical exertion in to the mix. That's where my Garmin Forerunner came in - As my workout progressed if I was on flat ground (non-stair portion of the workout) I would limit my heart rate to the mid 140s. When your heart rate is at that level, you really notice heat's limiting effect on your activity, the slightest incline would send my heart rate soaring, unless I slowed down. Which I did. A lot.
I did the stairs towards the beginning of the workout - 3 sets - which really showed my body's ability to generate heat - the first trip up I was cruising, probably faster than my normal rate - my heart rate hit 155 ( a far cry from the 178 from my initial run 3 weeks ago) my next two sets I hit 157, but I had slowed to keep from heating up too much. the rest of the first half of the walk proceeded normally - although it was hot - so hot that the boardwalk had that "sauna wood" smell. On the way back I found that the woods felt cool compared to the blast furnace of the boardwalk. A small breeze blew by as I first entered and the relative coolness was delicious. I noticed though that my heart rate was becoming harder to control - walking fast on level ground would send it climbing and to slow it, I would have to slow down tremendously, all but stopping. and then came the stairs - the last time for the day - the stairs stood between me and my car. As there is a slight incline approaching the stairs, I walked in slow circles around the landing, waiting for my heart to slow into the upper 120's to start heading up. I hit the stairs at 125 and my heart rose slowly, I was basicly hitting a rhythm that would be a fast "Canon in D" by Pacabel. I must have looked like a sloth, each step carefully placed upward and onward, never stopping. after reaching the top, I was probably a bit on the conservative side - my heart rate was 151. The walk concluded with the trip down the hill to the car. I was so elated that I forgot to turn off the Garmin but from the activity, you can see when the car ride starts.