Chills and Goosebumps

Audio Transcript

Coach Sinead: Hi everyone. I am here with you for today’s episode of the Runners Connect podcast.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

If you have a question that you would like answered in an upcoming podcast by one of our expert coaches, you can submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

We would love to hear from you and help you however we can, so please do feel free to submit any questions you have.

Today, we have a question from Marieke. She says, “I am training for my first marathon right now, and even though my training is getting along well, I have noticed lately that towards the end of my long runs, I’m getting cold and have goosebumps.

What can I do to prevent this? Do I have to drink or eat more or is it a lack of electrolytes? Am I training too hard?

Once I finish my run and drink, eat, and recover, I’m feeling fine. No major issue. But it happened a few times now and I’m looking forward to a way to prevent the chills.”

Sinead: I hear you Marieke. I’ve been there myself. I have grown up in a hot and humid environment all my life, and there have been summers where I’ve had these chills and goose bumps.

Usually, this is a product of dehydration, especially if you are training in a hotter and humid climate like you might be.

First off, chills occur when you are running in high temperatures and humid weather.

When you are running in these conditions, your sweat evaporates and subsequently regulates your core body temperature so that you can adapt to those conditions.

When you are dehydrated or another factor that interferes with your body’s natural perspiration response, you can experience a state of stress, like having a fever and that’s where these chills and goose bumps come in.

When your core temperature continues to rise, you’ll start to notice these symptoms. If you do notice these on your run, you want to take immediate action and stop running.

Chills are often a warning sign from your body and if you’re experiencing these, it’s best to stop running immediately.

Continue walking to do an active cooldown and you can do this as long as there are no other symptoms of heat injury like dizziness and nausea.

These symptoms mean that you are on your way to a more serious condition like heat exhaustion. I’ve been there a few times and it is not pleasant.

You want to avoid this at all costs and it can be very serious too. It can even be life threatening. So, if you experience these symptoms on your run, immediately stop and walk.

Get to an air-conditioned place, get some water in you because this is a product of dehydration, like I just said.

While I did talk about what to do if you experience the symptoms, ideally, you want to prevent these from happening in the first place.

Luckily, there are some easy ways to prevent this from happening. First off, dress appropriately for the weather.

It’s hot and humid out so you don’t want to be running around in a sweat shirt and sweat pants.

Make sure that your clothing is lightweight, and is moisture wicking so that your sweat isn’t just sitting on you.

Wear some dry fit clothing so that it does wick a little better, and make sure that for runs longer than five miles, if it’s hot and humid out, you should drink about 15 ounces of water prior to running and every 20 minutes while running, to help prevent dehydration.

What happens when you’re running in these conditions is you are losing so much more fluid than you would in more ideal conditions, so you’re excluding a lot of your fluids in your electrolytes through your sweat.

You need to make sure that you are replenishing both your fluids and electrolytes so that you aren’t putting yourself at risk for dehydration.

Another thing I’ll say is that a lot of us runners will start to hydrate a little too late in the game.

I’ve been guilty of this in the past as I’ll start drinking water about an hour before I run, whereas when it’s hot and humid out.

You need to be hydrating consistently throughout the day to ensure you are replenishing your fluids from your last run and taking preemptive action, making sure that your fluids are nice and balanced before you go out for your next run.

Make sure that you are sipping throughout the day and that you are getting a good number of electrolytes, and especially if you are running somewhere hot, you are losing a lot more electrolytes than someone who’s living in a cooler climate.

Make sure that you’re getting about eight to sixteen ounces of some electrolyte drink every single day.

It doesn’t matter when you get it in but preferably after you run, just to help build up your electrolytes stores after you’ve lost so much of it during your run.

A few more tips I’ll give you are a bit obvious, but make sure that you do plan. Try and run when it’s cooler out and a little less humid.

Oftentimes, if you’re running somewhere hot, it will be a little less humid in the evening.

You can always wait and do your run in the evening when it’s cooled down and the humidity has dropped a bit or you can do it first thing in the morning when it hasn’t quite gotten too hot.

Either is good. You never want to go in the middle of the day when it’s like that outside because you’re putting yourself at greater risk for these symptoms.

Symptoms again that can lead to much more serious conditions like heat exhaustion, heat stroke, all different kind of heat injuries that you want to avoid.

As you continue to ramp up your mileage and prepare for this marathon; your very first marathon, you can also do what is called pre-cooling when you have a workout day or even if you’re about to do a tune up race.

Pre-cooling is a good way to cool down your core temperature before you do any intense exercise.

There are a few ways you can do pre-cooling.

The one way that I usually do is that I will wet a small towel or a hand towel, and then put it in the freezer overnight.

The next morning or later that afternoon when you are about to do your workout, you go for your warm up run, and when you come back, put that icy towel on your head, your neck, your wrists and even on your chest a little bit.

That’s going to help cool down your temperature before you jump into more strenuous exercise.

You can also do that on race day, if you’re doing a tune up and it’s hot out. Make sure that you go for your warm up, come back and then go ahead and put that icy towel on you.

That’s going to help cool down your core temperature before you jump into your workout or race.

Another way that you can do pre-cooling is that you can get a paper cup and either fill it with water or Gatorade and freeze that.

The next day when you go to your warm up, get back from it, drink that and it’s going to be a good way of cooling your core temperature from the inside out.

It’s a nice little slushy before you go in. It’s not going to cool down your extremities.

The areas that you’re going to be recruiting, while you’re running, for instance, your legs and your arms will remain warm, while your core temperature will drop a few degrees before you enter some more intense exercise.

That’s a great way to ensure that your body regulates its temperature and doesn’t get too hot.

Usually, when your body goes over about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, that’s when these symptoms like goose bumps and chills tend to occur.

You want to make sure that your core temperature stays low and you can even stop throughout your run in and put a little bit more ice on yourself, maybe dump some water on your head to cool your core temperature down.

Thank you so much for submitting that Marieke.

It was a fantastic question and one that I think a lot of our listeners have probably dealt with in the past, myself included. I really enjoyed answering that for you.

Thank you so much for joining me again and until next time, I hope you have a fantastic run today.

Finally, I want to thank our sponsor.

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I hope everyone’s training is going well, and I hope you have a great run today.