I found that if I swatted at them right when they landed--they would fly away for a second and then come back. If I waited for about one second after being landed-on, then I could easily just snatch the fly out of my hair and crush it. This helped only slightly. I would count my kills and would regularly kill a few dozen per 4-5 mile run.
These insects are not close to as common here in Massachusetts, but there have been a few lately and it reminded me of my Vermont days. Back then I used to wonder why they were landing on me: They were never successful at getting a bite out of me and yet they faced most probable death in the attempt. Maybe they have better success with other animals and just cannot tell the difference between me and them. Or, maybe I am really good at detecting them and killing them. After all, I knew they were biting insects because of the all the people who got bit telling me about it.
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May I recommend DEET as well. The higher % the better. 95% DEET seems to work for about 2 hours but since you are exerting tremendous energy, not sure it would last that long. I don't know of any clinical studies proving the long term genetic damage of DEET but there is still that concern out there as well. In seeing news clips, it is clear, when a hand is put into a box of misquitoes, they steer clear with DEET. We can't say the same for imposters such as Skin so Soft, Citronella, and others.
That is probably a good idea for keeping them away. On the other hand, they never bite me anyway so maybe I should just learn to not mind them.
I can thereby gain fitness and better discipline at the same time.
A story of human inspiration. While watching the Lewis & Clark program on PBS (part 1), they talk about being in ND and having misquitos around them so thick, they were a constant, terrible nuisance. When one thinks of what they had to endure - Amazing. Hopefully the various tribes of Native Americans they encountered explained some tricks and techniques to help cut down on them ...
When I was in high school, we had a family friend who had worked on the Alaska pipeline.
I had heard somewhere that mosquitoes didn't bite eskimos and so I asked him about it. He replied that he hadn't seen any eskimos since they live by the coasts and he had been inland. He went on to say that based on the smell he encountered when he met american indians, he would be shocked if they ever got bitten.
Interesting. Native Americans did master many techniques only the White men could dream about including hiding their smell. Often they would sit in these "smoke" tents for hours and it ended up neutralizing their human scent (don't recall what plants they burned). This would allow them to put on animal skins and move right up into a heard when hunting. However, misquitos also key in on Carbon Dioxide from breath. This I don't know how they would mask or get around.
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