Heat and Humidity Careful Test

 

Adventure Location:

Decatur, Alabama

Date: July 29, 2023

We knew after yesterday that we needed to find out the OFM limits so we would not cause him severe medical trouble in the future of our exercise program. So this morning we planned a controlled walk with fail safe ways to handle the heat and humidity safely and still get in meaningful exercise. So we waited until the sun was bright and mean about 1000. The humidity was waiting and ready to stomp on us also.

We carefully mapped the route to attempt today to give us known 1 mile, 1.5 mile and 2 mile distances that we could use for historical reference for future walks. We also plotted the routes to be in tree shaded routes to stay out of the vicious sun such as this one.

With all the precautions we felt that there was no danger since at any bit of trouble we would quit the test and head back to the AC in the Castle.

Our goal was to find out how far the OFM could maintain the 2.3 mph low but aerobic speed his joints allow comfortably in these hot humid days.

So we set out at the pace and went on along well. The shade from the trees was important. The lack of breeze had us thinking that we would be cut short of the hoped 2 mile round trip. To us it is important for our health to get into aerobic breathing and heart beating mode for our exercise.

To the Teams surprise we were able to do the whole experiment reasonably well. The water bottle was half used during the walk and the pace stayed brisk for the whole distance. When we got back to the Castle the OFM was definitely ready to get cooled off but was not having ANY stress trouble at all. It is also correct that another quarter mile would have been seriously wrong at that pace or out in the open sun. The OFM thinks the lack of sun is a major important part of the experiment. Now we know a safe distance and conditions to plan for in the future on very hot days.

After checking the climate records on the internet it appears that it will be about mid September in this area before we can plan on picking up the pace and/or distance. On a bad feeling day like with joint trouble or just plain feeling lousy we can throttle the distance back to at least get a bit of aerobic time in for the heart to stay decent. In fact if it goes well we may back our goals down to two miles all the time. We will see. The OFM body health numbers will tell us what to do.

We plan on being out like this for another twenty years trying to have tooooo much fun.