I knew going into this event that it was going to be hot. The forecasted high had been bouncing around all week to be somewhere between 90-95 degrees. By the time we got started at 7:45am, it was already in the upper 70's to low 80's. By the time I finished, it was 85 with a heat index of nearly 90.

The worst part was on the eastbound portion of each lap. Since it was still early in the morning, the sun was still low in the sky, so there wasn't much relief from my hat. It was pretty much just shining right into my eyes.

There was one water station on the westbound portion of the 5k course that was about 2/3rds way around on the lap. So, we were able to get water at about 1.2 miles and again at around 2.7 miles. I did take some water both times I passed the station. I drank all of it the first time, but then felt a bit queasy afterwards. I only took a couple of good sips the 2nd time around and I was fine with that.

I did a wog combo of 4 mins walking followed by 1 min slow jog for the first 1.5 miles. After that I decided to just stick with walking since it was so hot. Even by the 1.5 mile mark, I was already starting to wheeze pretty badly from where I'd been sick recently coupled with breathing in the very dry hot air. I was really hoping to stick with my wog combo for the whole distance, but decided better safe than sorry given the conditions.

The only thing I think that would have made a difference is the heat. Since I don't really have any control over that, I guess I wouldn't really have done anything differently.

Walked around the finish line festivities for a bit and watched for one of my friends to finish. I waited for about 10 minutes, but never saw her. Based on our later conversation, I must have just missed her by about a minute.


The heat.