In fifth grade at Cathedral Parish School in Panama City, Florida, first period was P.E. It was already muggy by 8 AM in late spring, and I'd just walked a couple of blocks from home after a nice big bowl of Cheerios with banana. Sister took attendance, and we headed across the parking lot to the old Lyceum building, where Coach Drozd promptly got us out of his hair by sending us on a morning run. Down the street we went—right past my house, which I could see but not escape to—and back again. And with the heat, and the running, and the sweating, I threw up the Cheerios and bananas on the sidewalk in front of God and everybody. I also hate throwing up. But not as much as I hate sweating.

This has been a lifelong thing. Florida summers were sticky and disgusting. The only refuge was the ocean, and even that was warm. Sweating felt like being wrapped in a wet, salty blanket you couldn't take off. It wasn't just uncomfortable—it felt wrong, like my body was betraying me. Every other natural function that supports our health has the decency to feel good. It feels good to eat. It feels good to sleep. It feels good to go to the bathroom. Why doesn't it feel good to sweat?

The Alarm, Not the Relief

Here's the thing: going to the bathroom feels good because it's relief. Pressure builds up, you address it, and the reward signal says "well done." The pleasure is in the completion of the cycle. But sweating isn't a completion. It's a warning. Your body sweats because you're overheating, and overheating is dangerous. The discomfort—the sticky skin, the salt in your eyes, the clinging clothes—is your body screaming at you to find shade, stop exerting, cool down now.

You're not supposed to enjoy it. You're supposed to fix the problem. The relief doesn't come from sweating; it comes from stopping sweating—from stepping into air conditioning, jumping into a pool, or collapsing under a tree with a cold drink. The reward is at the other end.

This is why athletes talk about the satisfaction of a hard workout, but never about how great the sweat itself felt. The satisfaction is in the accomplishment. The sweat was just the price.

The Hot Spring Paradox

So here's what puzzled me for decades: I detest sweating, but I love soaking in hot springs. Love it. I can happily sit in 104-degree water all day and have done exactly that on multiple occasions. I'm absolutely sweating in there. So why doesn't it bother me?

The answer turns out to be elegant. In a hot spring, everything that makes sweating miserable is absent:

• You're already submerged, so the sweat mixes with the water and you never feel it on your skin.
• There's no exertion. You're floating, relaxed, probably half asleep. No stress hormones, no fight-or-flight activation.
• The heat is external and voluntary. Your body isn't failing to cool itself—you've chosen to be warm. There's no alarm because there's no emergency.
• Hot water triggers endorphin release. It's the same reason a bath feels good, just more so.

In the hot spring, the sweating is invisible and the heat is pleasurable. Your body has surrendered to the warmth instead of fighting it. There's no distress signal because there's no distress.

This also explains why Florida was so particularly awful. In dry heat—Arizona, for example—sweat evaporates quickly, which is the entire point. Evaporation cools the skin. The system works. You sweat, you cool down, the sweating stops. In humid Florida, sweat can't evaporate because the air is already saturated with moisture. So your cooling system runs at full blast and fails. You're drenched and still hot. The alarm is blaring and nobody's responding. No wonder it felt so miserable—it was the biological equivalent of a smoke detector you can't turn off in a building that's still on fire.

Arizona heat is honest. You sweat, you cool, you move on. Florida heat is a betrayal. You sweat, you stay hot, and your Cheerios end up on the sidewalk.

Making Peace

At 72, I've mostly arranged my life to avoid the situations I hated as a kid. I live in the desert now. I have air conditioning. Nobody makes me run laps before breakfast. (I've always said I wouldn't even run for a parking meter.) And when I want to be hot, I can still enjoy El Dorado Hot Spring in nearby Tonopah, Arizona where the heat is a gift, not an assault.

I still hate to sweat. But at least now I understand why, and that understanding has a certain comfort to it. My body isn't broken. It's doing exactly what evolution designed it to do: making me so uncomfortable that I'll do whatever it takes to cool down. The system works perfectly. I just don't have to like it.

Coach Drozd, wherever you are—I forgive you. But I'm still not running in the humidity.