Hydration

The importance of hydration on these hot days of late June was brought home to me this morning as I completed by nine-mile run, which again included Big Bearpen.  But this time I climbed to the summit and back down again at the tail-end of my run when it had heated up five or ten degrees and I had become dehydrated.  Despite circling back to the water fountain at the Park several times in the first half of my run, the round-trip is four miles with no water (unless I carry it, which I do not), so by the time I staggered down Fifth Street back to the water fountain again I was feeling a little light-headed.  I was tempted to join the little kids from Rec Camp playing in the new fountain. 

And the scales when I returned home told me that I had lost three pounds.  Opinions vary just a little, but the formula for re-hydration is this:  “For every pound lost, replace it with 16 to 20 ounces of fluid."  So I've been drinking water all afternoon until it is sloshing around in my belly.  So is our little cat, returning frequently to one of the various bird-baths in the yard which I keep full for that purpose (would a bird be reckless enough to perch on one?)

And now it seems as if the very sky is becoming hydrated as the afternoon heat builds:  the growling of thunder on the horizon to the west, darker and darker clouds building.  The cloud cover and cool rain would be a welcome relief, and the garden which I have been watering almost daily would also appreciate it. 

I'm glad that I have now become an unrepentant (and prudent) morning runner!  I cannot imagine going up to Town to run in this heat and under these stormy skies.