Weeks 7-9 – Running in Las Vegas in July (Not Advised!). Mid-July

 

 

July was a busy month. Most of my colleagues in academia have the summer months off from instruction. It’s also the busy season when it comes to prepping for fieldwork. In this vein my friends Brian Perry and Chuck Bell were in Colorado for their annual cycling pilgrimage. For a large part of their stay I was able to keep up with my running.

After their visit I had an opportunity to travel to Las Vegas to re-unite with old friends, Stephan and Craig. Craig is my best friend from high-school and we only get to catch up with each other in person about once a year.  It’s usually at Stephan’s since he has a large home and there’s usually concerts or other activities in Las Vegas we can immerse ourselves in. However, these visits tend to take place in winter or spring. This was the first time that I can remember that we got together in July.


I had every intention of continuing my training during my visit. And for the most part, I succeeded. However, one should not expect it to cool off at night in Las Vegas as it does in Denver. I was able to get up early each morning to go for a 2-mile run, but it was limited to those two miles because it was 90°F in the morning! Thinking about that is just unfathomable. 

 

Although it was and felt brutal, it wasn’t as awful as I you might expect. Evaporative cooling is a real thing, because as soon as I would sweat, the dry air would whisk off that moisture giving me the cooling that I needed. The real trick was getting up before the sun because as soon as your skin hit the sun, you were immediately 10 degrees warmer. It's like being a vampire or something.

Anyway, I stayed dedicated to my training during that small stretch. While I didn’t get the miles in that I really wanted, it kept my body in tune.

Hope you all are well. Please support my fundraising efforts to raise money for the Chicago Area Runners Association.
https://fundraisers.hakuapp.com/andrew-wilson-2

For my next blog I will explain, “Why CARA?”

 Cheers!


 

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