Ya’ll it’s hot! I mean, of course it is hot – it is after all Summer in South Carolina, but it is really really hot. And I know, it is cliche to say, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, but I’m not even kidding, IT’S THE HUMIDITY.

Every morning, for the past 3 weeks now I’ve woken up and looked at my new favorite weather app, WTForecast (seriously, this thing is HILARIOUS) and the humidity level has been at least 90%. It starts to take a toll on you. I keep telling myself, just think how badass you’ll be in the Fall, but something has got to give. My running has suffered drastically in this.

These cows know what’s up

For example, this past Sunday I met a friend for an 11 mile training run. We started at 7 am and it was 96% humidity and 73 degrees already. To say it was rough would be an understatement. More like miserable!! It wasn’t as bad as my last month’s worst run ever (see here) but it was bad. I honestly was hoping that my friend would want to bail after we did the trail once, but she was a trooper, so I was too. At one point during the run I heard some mooing and looked over and a whole herd of cows were chilling in the river. I was super jealous of them! Afterwards, I was able to literally wring out my hair and create a small puddle!

Unfortunately, I have a Half Marathon coming up in about 2 months so taking the summer off is not an option, however, I am toying with reducing my miles and doing more cross training until the worst of the summer is over. The next few Tuesdays will be trail runs in the woods to help with the worst of the heat. I may suck it up and do some treadmill as I have access to a gym.

How do you keep cool in the heat of the summer? Any tips (or even commiserating) are 100% welcome.