Hydration

By late April, I’m already rethinking what I carry. The shoe decision stays mostly consistent through the seasons — different for singletrack versus beach versus road, but those choices don’t change with temperature. What does change is everything else: how much water I’m hauling, what I’m putting on my skin, what fabric I’m wearing, and whether I need a headlamp at all. Florida summer starts earlier than people expect. By the time June arrives, you’re fully in it, but the real adjustment happens in April and May, when the dew point climbs past 65 and doesn’t come back down until October. I’ve been running these conditions for over a decade and made most of the gear mistakes that are possible to make. ...

Something shifts in the third week of April here. Not dramatically — it doesn’t happen overnight — but you notice it. The 6 AM temperature that was 58 degrees in mid-March is 68 now, sometimes 70. The dew point that held steady in the low 50s starts edging up toward 60, then 65. The sweat on your shirt at the end of a 10-miler isn’t quite the same as it was a month ago. Florida summer is announcing itself, and if you’re paying attention, you can feel exactly when the season starts its slow takeover. ...