[pct-l] acclimitation to hot weather

[Craig Stanton]

I've just gone through summer here, but it hasn't been particularly  
hot. I have a week in San Diego to settle in. Can you recommend a  
good way to ease into the hot weather of So. Cal.? Should I spend my  
week there in the sun drinking lots of water? In the shade drinking  
lots of water? Wearing lots of warm clothes to make it harder that  
week and then feeling cooler when I hit the trail? There must be a  
good way to acclimatize but all I had planned on doing was turning up.

~Craig


On 9/04/2007, at 10:37 PM, roni h wrote:

> Here in Israel hot weather behavior is drilled to evryone,  
> especialy when we serve in the army. Wearing a hat and force  
> drinking water is compolsery in many cases but even that doesn't  
> always help.
>
>
>   About a decade ago there was a very famous training accident when  
> two soldiers from  Sayeret matcal - which is the most elite  
> commando unite in the Israel, were found dead side by side from  
> heat exostion, even though they still had water in their cantines.
>
>   From the inviestigation it turned out that those guys started  
> training in the desert only the day or two before, and so weren't  
> climitized to the hot weather.   Even though they were well  
> hydrated, their body just wasn't able to to get rid of as much heat  
> as it was making, so they become disoriented and collapsed in the  
> exposed sun, and shortly afterwards died.  I imagine that the basic  
> mentality of a soldier in an elite unite, of going on, regardless  
> of anything, contributed to the fact that they didn't stop and rest  
> in time.   I guess that the stuberness of some thruhikers might be  
> somewhat similar to that, and might cause them to do the wrong  
> decision when they are considering stopping.
>
>   A couple of  week of aclimization does help get Your body more  
> well prepared for hot weather. You still have to be carful, though,  
> not to overheat on the hottest hours of the day, and insted to seek  
> shelter in the shade.
>   The israeli army has areas, were training is prohibited in  
> certain hot weather in certain times of day. This was a lesson that  
> was lerned the hard way.
>
>