Staying Cool

Easy was the name of the game today, but thanks to my good friend DC humidity, nothing about this run felt easy.

I was slightly hopeful last night when a wicked thunderstorm rolled through, thinking maybe it would cool things off, but no luck. It was so humid out this morning the water from last night's rain hadn't evaporated.

Weather stats:
5 a.m.
73 degrees
96% humidity
Dewpoint 72

I slogged through my 3.5 miles and at times it felt like I wasn't moving anywhere. I still managed negative splits though.

1: 10:01
2: 10:00
3: 9:25 (no clue where that came from, lots of downhills though)
.5: 5:30

Although the weather wasn't fun and today's easy run was still hard, it felt better going slower. I didn't feel quite like I wanted to collapse and die at the end of it, but boy did it feel good to step into my air-conditioned house once I finished.

As I was running, I was shaking some tree branches to knock off the water so I'd get a quick cool me down shower. It actually felt pretty good. On long runs, when I have my water bottle I tend to dump water over my head, but I don't take it on these short runs, so the left over rain worked as a nice substitute.

Do you have any good stay-cool tips I should try? I could certainly use them.