For a runner, the temperatures this past week have been almost perfect: very cool mornings, and even during the day the temperatures were good for an afternoon run.

Temperature will affect runners in different ways; and even a cool temperature can be tough if the run is longer than normal.

I talked with Paul Paese the other day to ask how the San Antonio Marathon went. He came in at 97th place out of 1,300 runners, which is really outstanding. He said he ran a 3:39 time; that is a bit slow for him, as he usually comes in around 3:10 or 3:15.

Because he has entered and run so many marathons, he was able to recognize that the temperature was going to be a factor. The temperature at the start of the race was in the mid-60s; and this was early in the morning. He said that, when he was a little past the halfway mark, he knew that unless he slowed down, he was not going to be able to finish.

Reading about the results in the paper, the big item was that Lisa Galvan-Hunter, a runner out of San Antonio who had won the marathon the last four years in a row and qualified as one of the runners for the Olympic team, failed to finish. Reports said that she had been sick a few weeks before; and the temperature took its toll on her, and she was unable to finish.

Paul said that there were several runners who had to stop and not finish because the heat had an effect on them. He mentioned that the officials had plenty of water and aid stations on the course, and he thought that there must have been a minimum number of stations every mile.

It is amazing how much energy a body will produce when running. Even with enough water to help cool you down and replace dehydration, warm temperatures will make a marathon a difficult run even for the elite and experienced runner.

For the slower runner who will be finishing the marathon in over four hours, this high temperature becomes even more of a factor because of the danger of heat exhaustion. The one thing that is in their favor is that, by running slow, the energy expended is less, and their body temperature does not get quite as high as the runner who is running faster. Their danger is the amount of time they are running, although the high temperature is still a very real factor.

This year, they cut off the time for runners entered in the Boston Marathon. The temperature was very unusual for Boston this year; and organizers recognized that there was trouble out on the course when runners began dropping out of the race along the route. Organizers established a finish time for runners; and if you were not across the finish line in that time, they shut down the race for safety reasons.

Hopefully the temperatures will be cooler now that it is the middle of November. It makes it much easier to go for a run and feel refreshed afterward instead of wiped out.

I just came back from doing a presentation at a conference in Maine last week, and the temperature there was jacket-wearing weather for me. Early morning was in the high 30s or low 40s, and seldom got much above the low 50s, if that. Most of the runners I saw along the very scenic roads had tights and jackets on, along with sock caps and gloves for the morning runs.

I mentioned that it must be nice to have so many roads that are quite narrow but run through some great scenery with the pine trees, and often along the ocean bays, for a runner or a bike rider with minimal traffic.

This time of year is past the tourist season; and even some of the businesses such as restaurants and motels were closed for the season with a sign outside saying “See you next year.”

The reply was that minimal traffic was true; but the fact remained that when a car did share the road, there was also minimal road to share it with. I did not think about that until I started thinking about running on narrow roads with lots of curves or bends and some steep hills most of the way. It did leave a lot of blind spots for a driver to see a runner along the side of the road with short notice to avoid them.

After hearing that, I began to notice that most of the runners were well off the road, and running on the gravel or pine needles that bordered the road. For Maine runners it was worth the possible poor footing to be able to run in a very scenic environment and enjoy a good workout.