Brown Air

I have been back from Reno for about a week and I've started working out again. My first work out was a run that took place last week before I was over the effects of my Reno trip. I wanted to get back into the swing of things, even though I didn't feel up to it. The run was my normal 1 1/2 mile run at the Bell Bomber Loop.

I started off and before I even got 1/4 of a mile in I was tired. It was hot out (with the heat index, it was in the 100s), and I was already soaked to the bone with sweat ( this was a lot different type of heat than you see in Reno). The air seamed thicker, making it harder to breath (also a lot different from Reno (higher elevation - thinner air). It took me a lot longer to finish my run than it normally does, and I figured I was just not recovered from my trip.

A few days later I decided to go for a bike ride. I had been riding the silver comet a bit and wanted to try something else, so I decided to go and ride the Berry College Campus in Rome, GA. This is a beautiful campus and a easy ride (as much as any ride is a easy ride to a fat guy). It has a couple of small hills that I thought wouldn't give me any problems, and by now I felt like I was completely recovered from my trip, so it should be a fun little (12 miles) ride.

I started off late in the afternoon, in order to try and beat the heat (it didn't help, it was in the high 90s even then), and before I had even gone 2 miles I was tired. At the 6 mile point I had to go up a little hill and I couldn't make it. My heart rate (HR) was at 95% of my Max HR and I couldn't catch my breath. It took longer to finish this ride than it should have.

As I drove home I started to worry that I may have caused myself some damage hiking in Reno, or that I was in really poor health. But, luckily around that time I started thinking these things the news on the radio reported that it was the forth or fifth straight day that the smog alert was at CODE RED. When I heard this, it was as if my eyes had opened for the first time in a long time. The air was brown. No wonder I couldn't breath well, the air had substance. When I was working out, I wasn't breathing air, I was eating air. This also explains why I haven't been hungry lately (I thought it was just the heat), I'm full from chewing on brown air all day (mmmm brown air).