Florida Man Ends Run Covered in Gnats. Here’s How You Can Avoid the Same Fate

Runner's World ^ | June 17, 2019 | Jordan Smith

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Jon Bates owns Addicted to Fitness, a gym in Naples, Florida. As a personal trainer, he ends his nights by running 3.5 to 4 miles for both mental therapy and as a way to get his workout in.

Bates said his friends give him a hard time about being outside in the humidity and heat when he has access to an air-conditioned gym, but he enjoys his outdoor runs, and the chance to sweat in the fresh air.

So last Monday, he set out for his usual run, but on a slightly different route. He told Runner’s World he kept coming across swarms of gnats that would just pop up.

“What do you do? You just gotta run,” he said. “I closed my eyes and mouth and blew through them and kept running.”

Bates said he didn’t think much about the swarms of pests until he got done running. Then, he looked down and realized he was covered with them.

“They didn’t bite, it’s just kind of an annoyance. I was literally covered in gnats,” he said. “It’s gross, you know.”

It’s definitely unpleasant, but could it be a health risk? We tapped some insect and infectious disease experts to find out.

“Gnats are certainly very annoying, but the ones that bite humans are not known to transmit infections,” Michelle Barron, M.D., an infectious disease physician at UCHealth in Colorado, told Runner’s World.

[Larry Lucido]

[John Milner]

It’s gnat season here for a couple more weeks.
My experience is Skin-So-Soft is ineffective for gnats. Great for Mosquitoes though.
We have a local product that also smells good, called “Bug Soother” It’s in literally every store and even the convenience stores.

I have also used vanilla and vanilla mixed with a bit of water and they do work too.

[Nifster]

Mans an idiot

[tomkat]

Permethrin

[tinyowl]

If I was Florida man, I would start identifying as Georgia Man or something so all this bad stuff would stop happening to me.

[GaryCrow]

I live in Mississippi which is as bug intensive as Florida. Every March I go to Wal-mart and stock up on six cans of Cutter 40% deet spray. I place them in strategic locations around my place, one can next to each door, a can on the porch, one on the tractor, one in the door pocket of my truck, etc. There’s never not a can within arm’s reach. I pretty much never go outside without spraying myself down from mid-March until October. It’s just a necessity in the deep south.

[June2]

Bkmk for bug spray