Share: 

Hydration is cool but when you’re hot, you’re hot

July 22, 2016

Don’t forget to hydrate - You may love to run and work out in the heat, and you may enjoy the feeling of sweat and pounds dripping off your body, and that’s cool. I have seen people stop and drop at races and practices, or just standing around watching a game or playing horseshoes. We sports people have the dumb gene, and hydration is no hedge to boiling blood. I can’t be the only person who has scalded his own scalp by turning on a hose lying in the noonday driveway and spraying his head. Runners are a goal-oriented supportive group, way above the statistical mean for education and income, who experience global warming and just keep running. The younger and older athletes are the most susceptible to extreme heat, and both groups represent the child in all of us, so supportive family may have to shut them down by ripping off their racing bib or drool bib. I’m being stupid - not a reach - just be aware; there is no acclimatizing to extreme heat unless you grew up on the Serengeti eating spaghetti.

Mind over Matter - Cindy Price Washeck powered her way to a Division I cross country state championship her junior year at Cape in 1989. She remains Cape’s only individual champion and, in the opinion of Tim Bamforth and myself, the least naturally talented of the elite runners that included Marty Shue, Chrissy Snarsky and Sonja Friend. “Two weeks before the state meet, she was going up to Brandywine Creek State Park to train on the hills,” Bamforth said. “She was crazy tough in workouts.” I was there too, and watched her race in high school. Most runners instinctively settle into a race pace, but Cindy raced beyond the pain barrier, the intersection where motivation and human limitations meet like a four-way stop. “You go! No, you go!” Cindy, now 43 and living in Lake St. Louis, Mo., won the 40-44 age group at the Striders Five-Miler in 36:55, a 7:23 mile pace.

Thurlow Cunliffe - This 65-year-old runner who has two addresses, Rehoboth Beach and Nicaragua, goes back to the early days of the local running community. He ran the Striders Five-Miler in 1:00:52 and will be heading back to Central America to continue teaching after a two-year hiatus in Rehoboth. Thurlow described Nicaragua as unrelentingly hot, and weatherwise, every day is pretty much the same. Thurlow looks like a character in a spaghetti western and, like others, I can’t understand why anyone would choose Nicaragua over Rehoboth unless they’re in the CIA. Seriously, he’s a good dude and I’m sure a good teacher.

Buyers and sellers - The midseason dropoff and pickup of players in Major League Baseball is ruining the product for fans more than free agency. Loyalty through lean times counts for nothing, watching the best players on bad teams get traded for prospects or just outright sold. Fans can stop this, they just have to fill in for the boredom gaps that permeate their lives, but I can only speak for myself.  

Loyalty at lower levels - Freedom of choice is elusive, as half the people in America are not pro choice, so in sports when the emerging gifted athlete chases the best deal for them and leaves local teams behind, it gets noticed and remembered. You can’t have it all, six ways from Sundays and play days. Great athletes make good teams better, but it’s not a la carte - all in or get gone - that makes it easier on everyone. What am I talking about? I’m not sure I even know.   

Snippets - I saw where Brian Riggin just celebrated his 28th birthday. Brian was a state champion at Cape in wrestling and lacrosse, and played quarterback the first football game his senior year, leading Cape to a win. He joins Tom Little and Keavney Watson as a one-game wonder at quarterback for Cape. I didn’t attend summer camps, but I saw a new one when a camper posted she had a great week at Horse Camp. Now that sounds like fun, except sitting atop a galloping horse happened to me once as a child and I quickly fell off on purpose before the old gray mare really got up to speed. Be nice to tourists; we need them, and you know you’re local if you haven’t been in the ocean in 10 years. Go on now, git!

Subscribe to the CapeGazette.com Daily Newsletter