How to handle training and racing in heat and humidity

Finn Melanson [00:00:09]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Malanson, and this is the run to the top podcast.

Finn Melanson [00:00:15]: The podcast dedicated to making you a better with each and every episode. We are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runnersconnect.net, where you can find the best running in information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. How to handle training and racing in the heat and humidity? Something a lot of our athletes are talking about now is the role heat and humidity plays in training and racing. As great as it would be not to see any effect, we know we need to adjust in order to stay on track. Our athletes have the ability to click a button in their schedule to automatically adjust their paces based on the dew point in temperature, yet it can still sometimes take some convincing that it's alright to be a little slower during this time. On this week's podcast, we cover how our athletes adjust their training and how you can use our temperature adjustment calculator a comparison of how much you need to adjust based on different weather conditions, the hydration and heat acclimation strategies our athletes are using, how dehydration affects performance and tips for staying hydrated and is heat and humidity training really the poor man's altitude. Master training in the summer, and we can really see the benefits payoff in the fall. Tune in and start maximizing your performance in any way other. If you're tired of sweaty, smelly, and stained seats after your runs, then you have to check out the car seat covers made specifically for runners from dry seats. Head to driseats.com to learn more and use code r c 20 to get 20 percent off your first order. Before we get into the conversation, if you're looking for the best way to increase focus and performance during your long runs and workouts this summer, you'll love perform from the amino company. I'll tell you more about them later in this episode, or you can check out the research at aminoco.comforward/rttt.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:02:20]: Everyone, Coach Andy Casarelli here, and this is going to be a solo episode of one of our coach chats for 1 of the top podcasts. The thing we're gonna be talking about today is actually something that a lot of our athletes are currently talking about and probably a lot of our listeners as well. So It's the heat and humidity. You know, we're getting into July. We're almost there. Can't believe it's already already almost July, but we're we're getting into the depth to the summer. The humidity is just starting to crank up in a lot of the parts of the country. Personally, I live in North Carolina and Central North Carolina, and we're we're looking at, you know, like, feels like temps of a 110 going into next week. So Today, we're really gonna talk about, you know, how a lot of our athletes have been dealing with the heat, how they how they adjust their training, some different ways and tools that We work with our athletes in order for them to, you know, succeed in this training because there's so many benefits that we can get if we can survive this type of weather. We wanna make sure that we are taking the proper precautions during this time. So right now, we'll go through a little bit more on this in a little bit, but We actually have a hydration challenge starting up on July 1st where we are challenging our athletes to aim to get at least this is bare minimum. This is typical rule of thumb where you're trying to get at least half your body weight in ounces. So a £150 person would be targeting around 75 ounces of fluid, particularly water and electrolytes. Those are gonna be the ones that were We're looking at the most for the for the benefits of hydrating ourselves, but remote we're challenging our athletes to try to hit a target goal of something like that every single day for the next 21 days. So, you know, beyond that, there's we know that we're losing a lot more when it's super warm and humid, and so we've given them the tools to also, you know, take a look at what what about your sweat rate? How much are you losing? How many electrolytes do you need to be taking in? So we'll get into that a little bit further into this, but I wanna highlight some of the things that we're also doing just to help, you know, get their workouts in a better realm because we can't necessarily do the same exact training that we can do in the in the cool crisp weather that we can do in in this warm weather. So We'll go through some different tools that we have, some tricks that I give a lot of the rudders that I work with. We'll also look at some some difference. What's How does humidity play into it versus just heat? And so we'll look at some of the ways that the where we're adjusting paces for different conditions. And we'll also talk about the poor man's altitude. So I don't know if you ever heard of that, but it's essentially equating the heat and humidity and training in it. to the effects of altitude. So we'll get into a study that looks a little bit more in-depth there. I know that could be and I think there's some controversy. Some people say, hey. No. It you're you're just training and humidity great. But we'll look through some science that's that's been done recently to look at how do the actual effects of training in the heat translate to our our our actual training and all that stuff and how it compares to altitude. So we'll get into that in a little bit, but that's mostly what we're gonna cover here today. So let's go ahead and hop into it. First thing is we have a a temperature adjustment tool which is super valuable. It's something that I I don't think I'm and I mean, I knew it was harder to train in the heat. I I I always knew that as an athlete, but I'm was always so focused on times a lot of times when I would go out to do a workout, if I had a pace that I was being prescribed, it was very hard for me to separate from that pace. But something that I've actually been trying to adopt, and I encourage a lot of the athletes to use, is a temperature calculator and a temperature adjustment tool. For the athletes at Renters Connect, we have this built into the schedules, which is awesome. It'll it'll automatically adjust their workouts. if they go ahead and click a temperature adjustment button on their workouts, it'll change the entire workout. So if they had, say, 4 by mile at 9 minute pace, it would automatically adjust the paces for those those in the different types of workouts, which is pretty cool. It helps to just kinda make sure that we aren't over exerting ourselves when the temperatures are warmer. We know that, you know, we if we know we need to slow down, but we don't. We tend to actually be working different fuel systems and different, you know, different systems within our body between VO2max and the threshold. So we're doing a threshold workout, and we are trying to hit these faster paces in hot conditions. it it kinda raises the question, are you still doing a threshold workout if you actually are are straining to hit those pieces, or is it becoming a little bit more of a VO 2 workout? And so that's where some of this comes into play. We wanna make sure that the workouts are targeting the right systems and not you know, becoming something more difficult or not targeting the system that we are trying to develop for our future races. So This is just a it's just a great tool, but we also have it so that and this is what I I'll use a lot of times for myself is I'll just go in and we have a temperature adjustment tool that you can you put in the dew point, the actual temperature outside, your goal pace, distance and then the effort. So the difference here with effort we can you can put in an easy run. You can put in a tempo effort, a race effort, and it'll give you some idea of what your pace should change based on those. And so what I did just to give you guys a little bit of a just a look at what this looks like is. Yesterday, when I was setting up my notes yesterday, it was an a temperature of 86 here in Raleigh. with a dew point of 63. And 4, just for clarification here, so this is some information from the National Weather Service. So less than or equal to 50 5, a dew point of less than equal to 55, and it's considered dry and comfortable. Between 55 and 65 is becoming sicky with muggy evenings. Greater than or equal to 65, lots of moisture in the air becoming oppressive. So if you're looking at the dew point and you're seeing these higher numbers, that's that's where we're gonna see this this humidity have a lot higher effect. If you've ever run and say, you know, it's 30, 40 degrees. But humid, oftentimes, that humidity actually makes the air temperature feel cooler. So you'll see a feels like temperature of it being a little bit colder. So that's like that when you look at that, that's where we see a lot of this. And then then the dew point comes into play, and, you know, the higher that gets and the closer the temperature that it is outside, the more that we're we're looking at having that moisture in the air. So when I was doing this, like I said, it was 86 degrees outside with a dew point of 63. So we are that day, specifically, we were in the becoming sticky area. And then the goal pace that I put in for just for this this this experiment here was 9 minute pace. And for this particular, run, I was saying that this was going to be a two mile tempo effort. And so with a 9 minute pace in the in the information I just gave you, the adjusted pace became 9 21. So, you know, we this is considered not super, super muggy. So we're looking at 63. It's kinda in that in between category, but the temperature is up there. So just considering those 2 things, we're still seeing a 21 second differential in pace. So really important to see how much of a difference we can be seeing sometimes. And, of course, this is all these are averages. So these time adjustments are gonna be based on an average of what most people will need to slow down by. but we all have our own different abilities to handle heat stress. Some people may be better some people may be worse. It's really just dependent upon you specifically. How often do you train in heat? How acclimated are you? So All of those things are factors that we have to consider when we we use this number. And so that's where it's helpful to just kind of recognize that you may not be within this realm. You may be, you know, ahead of it and really just figuring out where you fall and recognizing that they're but there is a huge adjustment here. So this is a full 21 seconds. Now then I also wanted to see how does this change for a race type scenario. So Same exact credentials here, 63 dew point, 86 temperature, 9 minute goal pace, a distance of point 2 miles, so a 10 k race effort. And the adjusted pace was, again, 9 27, so 6 seconds slower per mile. for that entire 10 k. So interestingly enough, we're almost going 30 seconds a mile slower over the course of that race than the goal pace at hand. So the way that I like to use this is that I will put in kind of the conditions there. And then that gives you You know, when if I am gonna hit? So if I end up averaging 927 on that day, it's kind of a good way to to not always be so focused on the numbers because like I said, runners are so focused on numbers and PRs and all these different things. But, really, all of the times we've ever run-in our life are so relative to what was going on during that event. So was the event cool and dry, then great. That PR is gonna be different than if you ran the exact same course, but the conditions were not cool and dry. And so You know, that was something I think I struggled with when I was a little bit younger. I ran my PR course again and was about 5 minutes slower 1 year, but the temperature was, I think, it was about 40 degrees different. So, you know, that huge difference at the time I was super down on myself that I didn't run even close to my PR, but when you when you can consider this, it helps to just recognize that you're still in the realm. So if I maybe if I had put that data into, say, this calculator and looked back at it, I might have been close to my PR and just not have known it because the conditions were so different that it was hard for me to actually compare apples to apples. So This is a really fantastic way that if you if you look at if, normally, you would probably run this race and you'd say, I wanted to run 9 minute pace and I was a good twenty seconds per mile slower than that, that you would tip typically, the runner is gonna come away with that thinking, oh, I failed. I didn't do great. But when you can see it this way, if you can focus on running this adjusted pace, when you come away from that event, You can look at this time that you've run and say, hey. I meet met my goal. I ran exactly what my goal was that shows my fitness is where I was hoping that it would be and that helps us to set up set ourselves up for future success because we need that confidence. We need to recognize where we are in training in order for us to keep moving forward. And so having this peace of mind that you're still on the right track is is I think the best way to get through our summer training focus on the efforts, really have a strong block without overdoing it because, you know, ideally, we use this block of training and maybe that poor man's altitude to help us PR in the fall when a lot of the goal races tend to be. So if you're training for something, that's a little bit farther out. Always keep that in mind and always, you know, always utilize stuff like this in order for us to adjust, and so that's what A lot of our athletes do in their own trainings. They'll adjust those workouts. They'll they'll kinda consider these the heat and humidity. when they factor in what they're going for goal wise. So the next thing I wanted to see in this comparison that I was doing was what about a sticky super high dew point? How does that affect these numbers? So this time I put in a 75 degrees dew point, 86 for the temperature, so exactly the same temperature as before. The same 9 minute goal pace And then I used the two mile the two miles at tempo effort, and the adjusted pace for this was 9 32. So with that change, which was an increase of 12 degrees in the dew point. With that small change, I guess it's kinda big. But With that change, we're seeing that the adjusted pace went up by another 11 seconds. So that's big. That's a huge and that has there that was with no change to the temperature outside. So keep that in mind. Interesting to see that difference. Same thing goes for that that same conditions for our race. We're at 9:37, so, again, another 10 seconds higher. So really think about this too that if it is a superhuman race, high humidity, high dew point that how big of a difference that could make. So, you know, lower dew point, Not seeing quite as much, but still a good a good amount of difference. When we look at the high humidity, that's where we're starting to see that jump even more. So just it's just interesting to look at. So the then I wanted to see what does it look like for high heat, but low humidity. And so for a tempo effort, our adjusted pace all things the same, but with a dew point of 50, our pace is at 9 16. So Just that that change in the dew point. So going into the comfortable and dry category, we're running we're running a good bit forwarding 5 seconds faster than we were when the dew point was in that middle in the in between category. And then We are going about almost about 15 seconds faster, a little bit more than that. then we were go we would be aiming for in the greater than 65, which is the sticky super, super impressive temperature. So just interesting to kinda see that change in in what we're looking at when we have different levels of humidity, which is gonna be the biggest factor there. When it's low humidity, you've probably experienced this. When you can run on some place where it's lower humidity and you can get a lot of you'll feel significantly better during that race or that run than you would if it was humid because when it's humid, you don't really get you the shade certainly helps, but you you don't get as much of a cooling factor even in the shade. So Just something to think about as well.

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Andie Cozzarelli [00:18:18]: The next couple things that I wanted to look at were high heat, low humidity. So or no. Not that one. The last thing I looked at was low heat high humidity, and so that for this one was looking at dew point of 65, but also a temperature of 65. Now that's not necessarily cool. It's not necessarily like a an enjoyable temperature, but it's not good. It should be a comfortable range if it wasn't humid 65 to go run-in 65 would feel good, you know, maybe not for a race setting, but it would feel good for just a general easy run. But for this but from this situation that we're essentially at that 65 is right where we're where our temperature is. So almost reaching that 100% humidity on that. So what does that look like in terms of temperature change? We are at a 9 10 pace. So everything else the same, but we've got 65 dew point 65 temperature, and our adjusted pace was 9:10. So we're losing 10 seconds with that. Not quite as much as before, just, you know, a little bit there and and it but it is still an adjustment. So a lot of times we look at the temperature outside and we kind of trick ourselves into thinking like, oh, 65 will be nice and comfortable. I don't need to worry about hydrating or, you know, temperature adjusting. That should be fine. But when that humidity is up there. We are still going to see a pretty substantial change in how we're affected by that. So so, yeah, I just wanted to go through that exercise and kinda show a little bit of of how these heat how the heat and all this can affect us, and so that we can get a better understanding of what that means for our training and and how we can utilize this to actually train better over the summer to get the benefits out of it without overdoing it because we don't want to end up injured at the end of the day. We want to come away with this feeling strong, feeling like we've we've gained something. feeling like that we've been able to acclimate and do all the things without getting injured or over trained or anything like that. So but yeah. So that's something that's a tool that we use with a lot of our athletes, and and it can be fantastic because it's built right into our schedules for for those of the athletes that use our schedules. So a really fantastic way to just kinda stay on top of that stuff. But but yeah. So then the other thing that that we talk about a lot on, you know, some of our coach chats and our our guidance assumes is what can should we adjust our workouts? How should we adjust you know, I I mentioned how these these long sustained efforts are gonna be the efforts that are going to be the most affected by the heat. So knowing that, you know, what is the ideal for us to do if we have training for a marathon or something like that over the summer. So, you know, most of the time, I encourage a lot of the clients that I work with to you let's do a speed block over the summer. Let's let's do something where we can bring the volume down. We're generally gonna be focusing on shorter efforts which are gonna be less affected by the heat, and that way it just kinda works naturally into the schedule the way that we would we would like it to have it. But if if you're training for something like a Berlin or Chicago, for the most part, you're gonna have to do some of these longer efforts in the heat It's just a part of the marathon training. So some things that we can do. You can adjust your workouts a little bit. So One of the things that I will recommend is, say you have a six mile tempo or something like that, break it up into say three by two mile with really short recovery. So use that recovery to, you know, have some cold towels or washcloths that you can throw on your neck or, you know, have some water. You can hold water, you can throw over your head. You can also just kinda take a little break. The biggest thing that happens when we're doing these harder efforts and the reason they sustained efforts tend to be the most difficult for our bodies is the fact that when we are a body temperature is rising. So as we're running in the heat, our heart rate's getting up. All these things are increasing. Our body is trying to cool itself, so we were sweating a lot. We're losing a lot. and in the process of that, the sweating and all that is supposed to help us kind of regulate our temperature a little bit better. But as we get farther into something, the temperature just continues to rise a little bit, and there's a critical point where if we start to get warmer than that internally, that's where our bodies start kinda shut down, and that's where we see ourselves slowing down. And so if we can prevent that a little bit by either throwing in a little breaks and very much calculated. We don't wanna be just doing, you know, let's go out for a 6 mile tempo, and we'll just stop when we feel like it. Have it so that you're kinda situate situating yourself where you know, every mile. So you do an or you could do 6 by mile with, say, 45 to 60 seconds rest in between. That can be a way to do it. Or, you know, if if you want though, if if you if you back off those paces, you may not need to do something like this, but If you want to at least practice running at your marathon pace just to feel that out, which is a good thing to do when you're training for a marathon, this is a good way to do it. You can give yourself some break in between those miles instead of trying to do 6 straight. And then you can kinda just feel what that pace feels like, and that'll help us to just get a sense of what it's what it's gonna be like. So, yeah, good way to do that is just to kinda throw in some some rest intervals when you can. And and even one thing that I've done too is if I'm doing a workout. And I say I'm I was doing mile repeat. It's actually an example that actually happened, I think, a few months ago. I had something like 6 by mile, and it was the first pretty warm day. It it's kind of a random one that just got thrown in there. You know, heat came in, humidity, was on the track, sun, full sun, didn't prepare super well for it. I think it was 6 by mile with short recovery at about half marathon effort. So I get out there. I started the first one. I feel okay, but that short recovery really started to creep up on me quickly. And so I think at least by, like, halfway through, I was like, not not feeling this. This is the heat's getting to me. So I took a little bit longer recovery in the middle, and then I just said, hey. Let's just back off this pace. Let's get this shoot for more for marathon pace. So that was what I did. And Turns out marathon pace wasn't wasn't coming super comfortably either. So that was when I I noticed myself really starting to slow down and really fall off. So instead of doing my last mile, I broke that last mile into 4 by 4 with short recovery, and I was able complete that in a in a strong way. And so that was the thing that I ended up doing in order for myself to cope with that that temperatures and the temperature that I wasn't ready for. So that's also an option. You know, it's it's okay to adapt on the fly sometimes with your training if you need to. You can if you're falling off pace and you're seeing yourself do that, Is there a way that you can shorten it and still be able to get some amount of a benefit out of it? So can you do if you do less reps or do you break those reps into pieces that are more comfortable or that you can get through and still get some benefit out of, that's always an option to look at. So, yeah, other things that we can look at. So if you're jogging your intervals on with a lot of the runners connect athletes, we give a rest periods, and you can either walk, you can jog, you can stand, whatever is the most comfortable. In in warm conditions, If you're used to jogging, go ahead and walk or just stand or hydrate or do what you need to in between. That tends to be a good way for us to recover better when it's warm. So, you know, be a little bit more on the on the conservative side with that when you're use those recoveries to help kinda keep the body temperature down if you can. Other things that we've we've talked about too, wear a hat. So Wearing a hat seems like such a small and significant thing, but it can actually help to keep your your head a little bit cooler and all that stuff. So You know, if you can do that also keep helps to keep some sweat out of your eyes, which I know can be super aggravating, probably one of my least favorite things about training through the summer. So You know, throw on a hat and it it'll help you to just kind of deflect a little bit of that heat right on your face, which is good for just keeping your your temperature down as well. pour cold water over your head. We talked about this on a reach recent coach chat. It was the pre cooling stuff that a lot of runners I don't know if a lot of runners do it. Some pros maybe do it. They have these cooling vests. I think that for a lot of people, they probably don't won't invest that much into it. But if you're really interested in, you know, taking it up a notch and going that extra level, try it. try try getting out try go getting a a nice cooling vest and and seeing how it feels. We've also got some some stuff out there with pre cooling and all these different things that you can do to prepare yourselves to be almost in a a pre cooled state before you even go out into the heat. I myself, I feel like I kind of do that. The temperature on our house tends to be a little cold, and I end up going outside and like, oh, it feels great out here when it's super hot. You know, something like that, you know, getting yourself into a cooler environment before you even have to step outside. will just make yourself feel a little bit a little bit better. So you that's definitely something something to try. And like I said, focusing on speed over the summer is something that we suggest. And even if you're breaking up your training that way, it's it can be nice especially if you know you're somebody that that struggles a little bit more in the heat. Look for races that are in the fall. Look for like longer races. Look for your half marathons and marathons that are gonna be later in the fall so that you're not doing the bulk of your training in the heat. and spend some time working on your 5 k and 10 k speed in between. It's a good way to just shift gears and and work some of the biomechanics a little bit more that We don't work as much in the marathon training. So, you know, something to think about, something to try out is to just, you know, shift gears a little bit when you when you reach this time of year. So so yeah. But that that pretty much covers a lot of the things that we do too or that we suggest with a lot of our our athletes to, you know, do a little bit better within the heat in terms of just adjusting their workouts and figuring out how to make them a little bit more manageable. But yeah. So I wanted to cover too, and I mentioned this at the top of the top of the show, but we are right now doing a hydration challenge in. Like I said, aiming to drink half our body weight in ounces, which if you are somebody who is using the metric system, That looks like I believe that it is in the the liters of fluid would be kill your your kilogram weight times point 03 3. I do believe that's the conversion factor there. Not quite as smooth and simple as it is for the US customary system. That's just a rule of thumb that you'll that a lot of you'll see out there is half your body weight ounces being a very good base level. But another thing that we want to and I mentioned this is we wanna also make sure that we are taking it enough for the amount of sweat we might be losing when we are exercising. So one thing that we have in a lot of our athletes have access to is some different hydration calculators. And so these will take into account, you know, what your body weight is before, what your body weight is after. Did you use the restroom during? How many times did you drink anything during? How many ounces? So in order for this to work, we have to have more precise measurements. So for this, you know, we asked that you you bring a water bottle and you know how many ounces are in it, and You have it maybe with one that has a measurement on the side so that you can see at the end of it, okay, how many ounces did I take in of this, you know, 16 ounce water bottle? and then you can put that into the calculation. And so then it spits out a general amount of of fluid that you need to take in to replace what you've lost And then also with that, there's a calculator for electrolyte replenishment, which electrolyte replenishment, I think, tends to be one of the most one of the more challenging things. And so we at one of our runners connect camps actually that's in our our Florida 1 which is in in February. It's our winter running retreat. So it's a great break for a lot of people who are dealing with those those harsh conditions, those harsh winter conditions to go and get out of the the cool weather and into the kind of, you know, very comfortable weather for that time of year in in Florida. So we go down there to Orlando, and there is a nutritionist that we bring in for that, and she actually does some some sodium loss testing. And so there's you'd be surprised, I think, how much we lose when we sweat, and then also There is everybody's gonna be a little bit different. I can't remember the the full calculation or what the average is, but I believe that it was around 900 milligrams, something like that per I'm gonna butcher this, so I'm not gonna give you any exact numbers, but it's per liter or something like that, a fluid loss or I can't remember exactly, but you'd be surprised that the the level is actually fairly high for a lot of people. And then if you find yourself over the average because it can give you what your loss is. That's where we know that it's a lot more challenging to meet your electrolyte needs. And for people who are tend to be super salty sweaters, this summertime can be just a bear to deal with. So, personally, I am also somebody who is a I'd say I'm a pretty salty sweater. I haven't had mine measured, so I don't know specifically, but I always have that salt rim kind of on my skin. So if that's something you've noticed about yourself when you're in training, then you're very likely a salty sweater. So, you know, thinking about that, it's the biggest thing is if you don't have a way to measure it like we did when we were at camp and a lot of the campers there were able to or the retreaters were able to you know, get that actually measured so they could tailor it to themselves. Start trying some different things out, see what you feel best with. That was actually what I did this past this past spring, I was in Hawaii for a trip. And during that trip, I was trying to figure out what I was going to use for fueling on course at grandma's marathon. And I traditionally not like I mentioned, not not very good in the heat have really struggled with that. And so what I ended up trying out was some of the salt stick electrolyte capsules. And I was utilizing those and bringing water in a now carry on little bottle that it was one of those bottles kinda suctions glow it's kinda suctions to smaller as you drink it, so it makes it nice because it gets lighter. So I was practicing with that, and the salt tabs. And I honestly that that was the best I'd felt training through some heat, and I survived workouts that I had struggled with in the past. I did heat adjust. I was figuring out what my heat adjustment factors were. I was packing those electrolytes, and I was testing out how often I needed to take them. And so that gave me a good sense of, okay, how much am I losing? How much do I need? And it kinda could tell towards the end there when I was starting to feel like I was losing too much and needed more. And so that was a really helpful way for me to start, you know, experimenting with some new things. and for the first time not being completely destroyed by the summer weather.

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Andie Cozzarelli [00:35:41]: I did wanna touch on, so we have We had a conversation with this actually on one of our Zoom calls with our team, and one of our athletes has been experimenting with some preloading of sodium, which If you haven't heard of that, it's essentially just, you know, drinking extra electrolytes the night before. And and then also potentially the more of, and so there's different ways you can look at this. You can try some different products depending upon your needs. But, you know, it it helps your body to retain a little bit more fluid, and and that could be really valuable in helping us to stay hydrated, which we know will help us perform better in the heat. So that's something that one of our athletes has been trying, and he said that it's been helping a lot more. He's traditionally really struggled in some of this heat and humidity and feeling really rundown with his training, another thing that he has also done is he he changes the number of times that he is running when he is in the summer months. So instead of doing his typical, I think, 5 days a week, he dropped it down to 4. We know that in the summer, we are going to have a little bit more difficult time recovering. So when that happens, if we notice that that we're feeling that pretty often, it might be better for us to not be running as much. So that's also where the, you know, training for a shorter rate can help because we don't need quite as many miles in the legs. So something to just be mindful of there too is that you you can you can play with how often you run. You can always add in a cross training day instead of trying to do a bunch of runs outside, but it's just gonna be that balance of helping us to to not overdo it. If we're not recovering well in the summer, we don't want to just force miles in because we think we can. That it's always that balance between how much you you recover and how much you do, and we need both in order for training to be successful. So, you know, play with how many times you run And then, like I said, continue to focus on the hydration piece. So one thing I hadn't touched on yet is that when we talk about this hydration challenge too, The biggest reason that we're not recovering well is because when we come off of a run, we're gonna be in a more dehydrated state. And in order for our bodies to be able to start the repair processes, first thing on the list of priorities is to rehydrate. So if you can get those electrolytes into your system and those fluids and all of that into your system quickly after a harder effort, then the the quicker that our body is gonna be able to start some of those recovery processes, the better that the fuel intake that you take in coming off of that is going to be. So you know, doing all these things in that order is gonna be valuable. And so we are challenging our our athletes who not just increase their water intake, but think about their electrolyte intake and the timing of that and how much they're taking in. because the biggest thing is that if we're if we're we wanna take in more fluids and specifically wanna take in more water to be better hydrated, we want to make sure that we're not overdoing it because we can dilute our sodium levels and that can cause a very dangerous thing called hyponatremia. So that's basically just when your your body is is losing too much or your body doesn't have enough sodium replenishment, and the water that you're taking in is kind of almost it's almost like you're drowning drowning yourself. So it to just completely dilutes your body, and so we don't want that to happen. We wanna make sure that you're always keeping those electrolytes in balance. And so we're encouraging them to try some different electrolyte products. We're big fans of Element t, so or Element however you however you like to say it. We're big fans of them, and so we're actually using those as prizes. So if they can if they can stick to their half their body weight or whatever they set their goal at, then they'll be they'll be getting rewarded with with some element hydration products. So super exciting for that. And yeah. So moving on, though, if we're talk we're talking the other things that we the other things that we've linked in to the the athletes to focus on is to also look at check check out those sweat calculators to see if they wanna go the extra mile, what how much more do I need to take in? How much more electrolyte do I need to take in? And and that'll help to kinda continually see those improvements in how they hydrate. And then the second part of this challenge is to actually encourage our athletes to see the difference. So focusing more not just on taking in more but taking in more and then seeing how much better they feel. Do they do they feel like they're hydrating more? Do they feel like their workouts and their performance is improving? Because that's gonna be biggest motivator for continuing to take on a habit is seeing those results of that. So if we can if we can see our body's performing better in warmer weather just by being able to increase our our intake of water and electrolytes. then we're gonna see that habit continue for where whatever time of year it is. It's hot day in December, which happens here in Raleigh. we'll be prepared. We'll know exactly how to how to get our bodies in the right space for it. So so that's the other part of that is to recognize that when you're doing something, if you're hydrating well, if you're trying to increase something, take note and tick stock and how those things are actually impacting you and your performance. that'll also help you to get into a a good system for how much you know that you need based on the weather. That it's it's gonna be fantastic for knowing, you know, no matter what temperature it is at your race, your goal race, you're gonna know exactly what you need for your body in order to format your best in that condition. So that's kinda what we're going for here is to see what we can do there. I'm joining them on this because I'm notoriously at drinking water. Never it's sometimes I just I'm not I'm not interested in drinking water. And so finding ways to just get myself to drink more which, you know, having them to hold me accountable, I think, is gonna be huge. So so, yeah, excited for that that that's coming up. So So yeah. So with that, though, so while we're talking on the on the hydration and performance stuff, I wanted to kinda share some some studies that we've we've found based just based on our own research. So researchers examined the effect of dehydration on the performance of 8 male runners over fifteen hundred meters, five thousand meters and ten thousand meters. Not surprisingly, the performance of the runners degraded significantly. The results indicate that runners slowed nearly 80 seconds during a 5 k and lasts 2 minutes 40 seconds over a 10 k. due to dehydration. For half marathoners and marathoners, this data also makes it clear that hydration becomes more important as the race distance increases. So this clearly states a little bit more about how being hydrated is gonna be so important for your races. And so I mentioned pre loading and doing things like that. The better prepared we are going in, the better that we're going be able to sustain through the race. When we are racing, our body is is constantly, you know, figuring out what's priority here. And so we are at a certain point, you know, when we're pushing ourselves pretty hard, our ability to keep up with our losses in terms of fuel and hydration and electrolytes, it starts to become diminished a little bit just because We're working pretty hard and our body is trying to figure out what's most important to focus on. And so sometimes we'll get to a point where it's really hard to keep up with whatever we're we're losing. And so in that instance, being prepared ahead of time, really, really important to ensure that we're not running out too soon. And so If you're feeling like, if you're somebody who loses a lot of sweat, heavy sweater, you know, see how of some pre loading can change that. So I'm interested to see the the athletes that we have doing that now, how it how it impacts them and, you know, see what the effects are. So that's something I've I probably should start trying for sure. So the other side of the coin, like I mentioned, overhydration or hyponatremia, is the result of having blood low blood sodium levels despite the marked hype of dehydration. Hyponatremia is actually one of the most common medical complications and long distance training and racing. So I think the far their vast majority of there's a higher incidence of people getting hyponatremic than the high dehydrated in a lot of races. And so it can be super dangerous. And a lot of times, People who are dehydrated or hyponatremic think they're dehydrated and they keep drinking more and matters get worse. And so we wanna always avoid that by you know, making sure that we have a good balance of what we're taking in, not just water. So so, yeah, that pretty much covers a lot of the the hydration piece to performance and the heat and humidity. So let's look a little bit more on the research about the poor man's altitude. So Really, what this is saying, and this is it's called the poor man's altitude because you don't have to fly to across the country, to place it elevation. in order for us to see the benefits of what they're saying is similar to altitude. So Mostly, this is talking about some higher heat, higher humidity, and how it it kinda simulates that heiress thin quality that we get at treating altitude. And so they have actually done some research. So the research that I pulled up in the article that I found wasn't out site online article by Alex Hutchinson. According to a research team led by Carsten Lundby and Bent Ronstad at Inland University of Applied Sciences in Norway, heat boost levels of oxygen carrying hemoglobin in your blood just like altitude training, but it's not a quick fix. So this this study really gets into how we what the differences are, what the performance benefits are. We've talked about how, you know, if you can survive and and do well and get a good training block in the heat, how beneficial it is. And this is gonna show us a little bit more about how physiologically, we're seeing those benefits play out. And so what they have found in from reading this article is that yes, there's this very similar mechanism, but it's slightly different, and it takes longer. So we'll get into that here. This is gonna get a little sciency, but I think that for those of you who who nerd out about this like I do, you'll you enjoy hearing this. So Spend a few weeks at high altitude where the air is thin, your body responds by generating more hemoglobin. That's why the vast majority of elite endurance out the altitude athletes do altitude training. So a lot of elite athletes will go to train at altitude either for sense of a time or they live out there. So there's there's a running Mecca and boulder, it seems. And you'll also see that in some other areas in without throughout the country. but it's mostly so they can get those training benefits. So the way that it works, though so this is talking about how the thin air responds by allowing your body to generate more hemoglobin, but the way that it works for heat is slightly different. So The study states, so outside line article states. The most notable change after just a few days is a dramatic increase of up to 20% and the volume of plasma coursing through your veins. That's the part of the blood that doesn't include hemoglobin rich blood cells. So it's not immediately obvious where the plasma will enhance your endurance under moderate weather conditions. In fact, there's ongoing debate among scientists on precisely that question So there that's kind of they don't know exactly how this is working, but their 11 scientist is a theory. is that the extra plasma dilutes the acclamation of lactate during heart ex exercise, but there's no doubt that boost performance in hot conditions, the extra plasma volume helps shut exes heat your skin among other things. So not not a 100% sure exactly why it seems, but other things that they do, they did find. So extra plasma volume has the effect of diluting the concentration of red blood cells in your blood, a quantity known as hematocrit, If your total blood is made up of 45 percent red blood cells by volume, your hematocrit is 45. If heat training caused your plasma volume to increase will lower your hematocrit. Their hypothesis, Lundy's hypothesis hypothesis based on the idea that your kidneys are constantly monitoring hematocrit trying to keep in the normal range. If your hematocrit has a sustained decrease the kidney response by producing EPO to trigger the production of more hemoglobin rich blood cells unlike the rapid increase in plasma volume is a slower process. They figure it could take about 5 weeks. So If you don't know, EPO is is actually a banned substance for in quantities that they can be tested for. This is a natural EPO response by the body, so it wouldn't trigger a the same thing that that would trigger a positive blood test for EPO. That's something that is it's a different mechanism. It's a lot more. There's higher increases than we would see naturally. So this this is what we're looking at though that's causing that increase in but that's this is what their hypothesizing is causing a similar response to altitude training that training the heat and humidity has. And so but they are saying that it takes about 5 weeks. So whereas Altitude training, I think that I've read somewhere that it you can see some benefits within 2 weeks, but you'll see a more sustained benefit from, you know, going somewhere for, say, 4 weeks or something like that. This process takes about 5 weeks. So for those of you who are in your summer training blocks. In order for us to see this marked increase in performance and fitness, it's gonna take us 5 weeks of this training they're really starting to see that take shape. So if you can train train your butt off and follow kind of the recommendations we gave, by staying hydrated well, by, you know, adjusting your pates as well you need to, you could see your your fitness and some of these physiological things take shape so that when you're heading into the fall training, you're gonna see those spaces drop. You're gonna see some faster times, and that's the that's what we're hoping for. So that's what we're going for. when we were talking about, you know, how to train more optimally in this weather. And so this is where this article, I think, is is helpful for recognizing that there are some benefits if we if we are allowing our bodies to train optimally in warm conditions. So this study though They recruited and this is something that's a different study actually. They recruited truly elite cyclists with an average VO 2 max of 76.2 which is just a just a measure of VO2max. They were training about 10 hours a week during the 5 week study and into that regimen. They incorporated 5 afternoon sessions of 50 minutes of light exercise on a stationary bike. The 11 cyclists and the heat group did those sessions in about 100 degrees 65% humidity. And if you're looking at this and you see 65% humidity, maybe not the most human environment compared to what? Some people train in, but 65 degrees is actually still gonna have a pretty substantial dew point if you think about it that way. So On a degree, 65 degree or 60 65 percent humidity is gonna have a high dew point, so it's gonna be in that monkey category. The 12 cyclists in the group did the same sessions at 60 degrees 25% humidity. So aiming for the same subjective effort level. During those heat sessions, the cyclists were limited to half a liter of water to ensure mild dehydration, which is thought to be one of the triggers for plasma volume. So I know we talked about staying hydrated and doing all those things. I I wouldn't say that that's, you know, worth riding that line too often in training. This was for that study. They were they were trying to get to that point. I will say that a lot of times, like I said, if your body's not keeping up with the demands of the hydration, what's gonna happen kinda naturally, you're gonna have some sort of dehydration. So, you know, good to know that as well, but it's good to factor that in. And but also not kinda go to the extremes on that. Don't try to dehydrate yourself just to see performance benefits, but the results of this study show that total hemoglobin mass increased from 893 to 935. which was a 4.7% increase. In the control group, they only saw a 0.5% increase. So mostly what this is just saying. So they they did have some mild dehydration, but mostly what this is saying is that the these athletes that were training in that heat saw these changes in plasma volume. So though there and it was a pretty significant increase. So interesting to kinda just see how that effect is actually playing out. in the in the physiology of it. So the study also included a bunch of physiology and performance tests including VO2max lactate threshold in a 15 minute time trial. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups, but several of the outcomes did show small to intermediate, intermediate effect sizes favoring the heat group. So if you're looking for that extra edge in your in your fall training, then, you know, it's it's showing small to intermediate effects, so not anything substantial, but what does that it look like on a large scale. So if we're talking about the marathon, what does small look like? So Looks like these guys were training. I can't I don't think I saw what their time trial was, but, you know, if we're looking at longer distance races, Small incremental changes at 10 k could look like bigger changes in the length of the marathon. So that would be interesting just to kind of see, but we do see that there is a an advantage. So at the very least, if you can, you know, do the best you can through the summer training, manage the heat and humidity in the best way you can, practice some really good hydration strategies, you know, start courting how much you're taking, all these different things. When you can bring those all together, we can see our fall PR shape up. So if you can if you can just manage that these warmer weather and these conditions, we know that there's gonna be some end in sight, and we know that there there could be some benefit. So It's just finding your way to work through that. You know, as somebody who would love to run-in 30 degrees any day, that's my ideal temperature to race in. I I know that a lot of people are probably gonna be like, woof. That sounds nope. That's too cold. That's my preference, and I feel like This type of weather for me is always such a challenge to kinda get myself out the door. The thing that keeps me going out there is to just remind myself that there's a benefit There's an advantage, and I don't have to run just as fast to prove to myself that I am fit. That's been something that's been a work in progress for me. to recognize that running slower temperatures outside and and meeting the effort demands is going to pay off. I don't always have to be hitting my goal pace to know that I'm fit for my goal pace. So utilize any strategies that you can to keep your confidence about it because this time of year can also be a huge confidence kicking the pants a little bit. So if you can do these things and I'll help you to stay confident through the summer training, especially if you've got an early fall, say marathon. You may not be hitting your marathon pace through the summer miles. You may not. And if you can recognize that the efforts you're putting forth are the equivalent, of your marathon pace and hitting your marathon pace, then you can feel confident going into race day that you've done the work to prepare yourself for the goal that you have ahead of you. And that's the most important factor here. We have to bring the training, the work that we've done together with our confidence and our peace of mind about what we've done in order for it to be beneficial. So at the very least, I hope you take away from this discussion today and this podcast. Just an appreciation for what you're gonna you can do over the summer. Be excited to challenge yourself to see that you can perform in whatever conditions there are that you are gonna be capable of of taking it on and and and coming out strong at the other side. As long as you, you listen to your body, fuel it right, hydrate right, you can do it. So alright. Well, that is all that I had. for you guys today. I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast, and hopefully, Michael and I'll be back for a group podcast here again soon. Alright. Bye, everyone.

Finn Melanson [00:57:15]: Thanks for listening to the run to the top podcast. I'm your Vin Malanssen, as always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on instagram at Finn and the rest of our team at Runners Connect, also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast play. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content behind the scenes experiences with our guests and premier access to contests and giveaways, and subscribe to our newsletter by going to runnersconnect.netback/podcast. Until next time, happy trading.