The Heat Exhaustion Blues.

So here in Texas it is hot. In fact it is very hot. We've been regularly hitting the 100+ temperatures for weeks now and I'm running in this heat. Well, I actually run earlier in the day when it is cooler (6 am)  which sounds like a good idea on the whole. The last couple of long runs that I have done on the weekends have been very tough, I usually take a day to recover from them but on Saturday (now to be known as infamous Saturday) I did my run as usual, it was supposed to be a 14 mile run but I cut it short at 12 miles because it was getting hot quite fast and I felt that there was no point in pushing too hard in the heat. So I finished the run and I felt OK, I  got home and started the long rehydration process. I had my shower and then got dressed and pottered around a bit, then I ate breakfast and pottered around a bit more and then I started getting a headache, then I started to feel sick, then I started being sick and then holy of holies I started with the diarrhea and then my head was pounding and I was crying with the pain, my whole body was shaking, my heart was racing and I was feeling really, really unwell.

I knew at this point I was in real trouble, so I walked around to the ER which is a two minute walk from my home and one CT scan, Lumbar Puncture, litre of IV fluids, pain relief and anti-emetic, I felt well enough to insist they let me go home five hours later. They only treated me for the headache and totally disregarded anything else but six days later I know I'm still dehydrated because at 96lb I'm 4lb under my "normal" weight, I still have a pounding headache that has me befuddled in my normal thinking, my ears are ringing fit to bust and I'm feeling as weak as a kitten. But I know that a few more days of rest and rehydration should have me up and running again.

The scariest thing about heat exhaustion is that when it was happening to me I did not have any physical warning signs, there was nothing during the run that had the alarm bells ringing, yes it was a slow run, much slower than I normally run but I was running with two other women and I was running at their pace (a slow pace) and not mine. I consider myself to be a fairly fit and strong person, maybe if I wasn't the consequences could have been dire.

Keep Well x