Ok so Ojai isn't Badwater where they have to run on the painted white lines on the side of the road to prevent the soles of their shoes from melting during the day, but it does get a bit warm here. Yesterday it was 90+ outside in full sun at two in the afternoon, and that was when I had some time to go running - sometimes you just gotta take what you can get.
I thought about the heat in the way that I usually have in the past over the years.
* How hot is it?
* How far will I go in the heat and how fast?
* When will I need water?
* Will I need sunscreen? hat? white long sleeve shirt?
Notice in that checklist of heat and sun related items there are no questions about shoes. But running in Vibrams with a scant 3mm of tread between me and the stove top (aka asphalt baking in the sun on a hot day) requires a bit of forethought now that summer is here.
I was about two miles into my run and out into full sun (after the bit of shade at the start) when the bottoms of my feet started to get ... warm. I started to sweat a bit as the shade had been exhausted about a mile back. To be honest I was already sweating, but now I was concerned too. Visions of me trying to flag down passing cars for a lift back while hopping from foot to foot flashed through my mind.
I shifted over to the dirt a bit more, but that wasn't much better. I started seeking out the shady spots from the random trees here and there with commitment. I thought about the course ahead and figured that I was most of the way through the worst stretch of baking asphalt and continued. By the time I finished up the bottoms of my feet were positively hot and they hurt. Not from the sharp rocks that manifest at random every run. Not from the 200 pound guy in cleats who stepped on my foot in soccer on Sunday. They hurt from being slowly cooked.
I'm either going to have to adjust my run schedule or stop being such a wuss.
