Sweater

On a recent post, Blog My Runs discussed being addicted to sweat and not in a fetish kind of way. In the same post, he mentioned acclimating to hot weather. This made me think of a post I'm Not Fit To Run did about acclimating to hot weather.

I am a sweater; not an argyle or cardigan or wool but someone who sweats. I have a sweating history that I thought I would share with you. You see...

When I was a fat kid wearing clothes from The Husky Department at Montgomery Ward my face would get red and I would sweat with just the smallest amount of physical exertion. My family used to tease me about my red cheeks. At some point I grew into my weight and stopped profusely sweating until the late '80s and then the buckets started to fill up with sweat. You see...
One of my closest friends from college convinced me that I needed to try aerobics. I was living in Ft. Worth and there was a place on Camp Bowie Blvd. named Aerobics To Go. The place was always packed.

Being prone to addictive behavior I got hooked on aerobics. I was there 5-6 times a week. My favorite time to go was after work because when we would finish class we would go down to Uncle Julio's for chips & salsa and Margaritas. They would normally seat us on the patio because we were a bit wet.

One of the things that I noticed was that I would have puddles of sweat around me when class was finished and other people would have a few beads of sweat. I needed a beach towel to dry off while other people needed a tissue.

I then noticed that my body could not distinguish between healthy exercise and having fun. When I would out dancing, ten minutes into it I'd start to sweat just like I was in aerobics class. It is embarassing.

OK. So fast forward to Mr. Sweater moving to Houston. Houston has two seasons in the year, Summer and August. The mornings are humid and the afternoons are hot and somewhere in the middle of the day humid and hot collide. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I decided to go for a run instead of eating lunch. I'm running and sweating and about to give up and then I ask myself, "WWVD?" (What would Viv do?) I kept running and let me tell you, when I was finished my sweat soaked shorts were clinging to me and I could hear my shoes and socks making a squishing sound.

Eight minutes into a run I am sweating and folks we're talking about big drops of sweat. When I stop to cool down and stretch I have puddles around me. Same thing with spinning or the Stairmaster; puddles I tell you!

On the other hand, I see people who don't sweat. What are they? Lizards and snakes wearing human costumes?

I've also noticed that my sweat seems to increase after consuming too much alcohol. I remember one day I was running with runnerOne at Rice University. It was the day after returning from a trip to New Orleans. A few minutes into the run I started to sweat and he looks at me and says, "What were you drinking? I can smell vodka coming out of you!"

Here's the odd thing. I don't sweat much when I do weights. However, I will break a sweat when I walk The Calvinator. Do you know how much I hate wearing wet underwear? Even the walk to Tony's Corner Pocket made me sweat. When we got there a couple of folks gave me a hug and they said, "You're wet. Have you been running?"

So anywaze, that's my ramble for the day all thanx to Blog My Runs. Stay cool and stay dry!