Go High To Get Cool?

Mid-summer bike and run workouts here in the desert when it’s 100 degrees or higher are hot, sweaty, and sometimes demoralizing.

Frequent stops are needed to wipe sweat out of your eyes and squeeze water out of your dripping headband.

Buzzards swoop down for a closer look thinking you may soon be an easy meal.

You look forward to going into the wind because it’s marginally cooler than going downwind.

On the really hot days, you lug along twice the normal number of water bottles – one or two per hour to drink and extra water to pour over your head to avoid a melt-down.

I mulled over all of this while trying to cool down after a hard workout on a recent 100 degree day and decided I needed to find a cooler place for summer workouts.

“Go high, young man,” I thought. “It’s cooler at higher elevations.”

Science tells us that there is an approximate 3.5 degree F drop in temperature for every 1,000 feet of elevation gain.

For my next hot-day workout, I headed to the top of Spillway Hill near Lake Nasworthy. There’s not a lot of elevation gain (about 130 feet) but I figured higher must be cooler.

It was a little better up in the “high country” on Spillway Hill. Based on the 3.5 degree temperature change per 1,000 feet, it was about half of a degree cooler (.46 degrees to be exact). Not much, but here in the desert every little bit of summer cooling helps.

One half of one degree wasn’t quite what I had in mind, so I googled the elevation of some favorite Texan go-to summer destinations to see if I could identify where that mythical cold-day-in-you-know-where might be for future hot weather workouts.

My first fantasy workout trip took me to the Texas Alps resort  of Fort Davis, which sits at about 5,050 feet above sea level.  That’s 3,206 feet higher than San Angelo so when we’re at 100 degrees the temperature there should be about 89.

Fort Davis sounded better than San Angelo but still not nearly cool enough. My quest-for-the-cool took me further north to the mountain community of Ruidoso, New Mexico which is at 6,920 feet.  The heat (or lack of) looked better there – the 5,076 feet of additional elevation compared to The Oven on the Concho resulted in a calculated temperature of 82 degrees when San Angelo is at 100.

Still, 82 degrees can feel warm during vigorous exercise so I decided to go for broke and really get up above the tree line. The logical choice was the top of Pikes Peak at 14,114 feet, which would be about 12,270 feet higher than the Cactus Hotel parking lot.

Pikes Peak appeared to be the perfect “no-sweat” summer workout location with the altitude-adjusted temperature estimated to be about 43 degrees cooler than San Angelo.

I could live with wearing a light jacket during mid-summer workouts when it’s 57 degrees instead of 100 outside.

The only problem with the go-high logic is that there’s an inverse relationship between cooler air at higher altitudes and the amount of oxygen available in the less-dense air.

You can breathe well but sweat a lot here in the desert, or be cooler while gasping for air in the high country.

After thinking long and hard, I decided that the best mid-summer approach was a compromise between being cool and being able to breathe.

I went home, turned the air conditioner on full blast, hopped on the stationary bike, and cranked up a video of people cycling on high country mountain bike trails.

Looks like I found the perfect cool place for summer workouts in the desert, and -  I won’t need the supplemental oxygen tanks after all.

Remember – you have to be creative to survive summer workouts here in the desert. 

Upcoming Events

• Aug 15: Mountain bike time trial, sanangelobicycleassociation.com
• Aug 17: Southland Shuffle, roadlizards.org
• Aug 24: Armydillo 10K and 2-mile, roadlizards.org
• Sept 5: Road Bike time trial, sanangelobicycleassociation.com
• Sept 7: Comanche Warrior triathlon, visitbigspring.com/pages/comanchewarriortriathlon
• Sept 7: Let It Go 5K, roadlizards.org
• Sept 14: Run to Remember, angelo.edu/asufit