pacing mile repeats in hot weather

lcomer

I'm being optimistic that  warm weather will come to the northeast eventually.  In the 1 run I did on our 1 nice day I got to thinking about my training pace for hot days.   When I run my mile repeats, do I adjust my pace if it's hot or try to hold the pace in my plan?  If I adjust, is there a rule of thumb for how many seconds to adjust for a given temperature? 

gamb

Posted By Lisa Comer on 18 Apr 2013 02:42 PM


I'm being optimistic that  warm weather will come to the northeast eventually.  In the 1 run I did on our 1 nice day I got to thinking about my training pace for hot days.   When I run my mile repeats, do I adjust my pace if it's hot or try to hold the pace in my plan?  If I adjust, is there a rule of thumb for how many seconds to adjust for a given temperature? 

I adjust my paces here in Atlanta.  My body doesn't take the heat and humidity well and we get lots of both.  I just go to whatever VDOT calculator you like and adjust my VDOT a little slower.  The effort feels the same going slower.  I've also been known to walk the rest intervals instead of jogging and I don't recover sometimes quickly in the heat.  You can also run 1/2 miles instead of full.  I think getting the X miles at Threshold is the important part.

Brad Marcus

Also, you an always use the appropriate HR zone that you would use in cooler temps. I've made the adjustment based on HR when variables change (hills, etc).

ezellrh

For the mile repeats (and shorter) only, I still try to hit the assigned paces in hot weather. I make up the difference in the rest intervals (i.e. focus on jogging/walking until my breathing / heart rate come down and don't sweat the time... pun intended). For all other stuff, I adjust to a reasonable pace given the temps.

Al Truscott

This running calculator, based on Jack Daniels' philosophy (as is EN), includes adjusters for temp, wind, altitude. Give it a whirl!

http://runsmartproject.com/calculator/

My theory on running intervals in the heat. First of all, you *are* trying to do these first thing in the morning, when it is going to be coolest, right? Second, the real issue is internal core temperature. As long as that doesn't rise over 102, you are fine, and it takes while to get up there. So shorter intervals (meaning 8 minutes or less) combined with very easy recovery intervals (5' or so) should keep your core from getting too hot to handle the work if you are only doing, say 3 x 1 mile. Even though you *feel* hot, and sweat more, as long as you give that core a chance to stay under 102, you'll be OK. Finally, have a jug of ice water available for hydration between intervals.

Which reminds me, I want to make my fortune by selling core temp capsules to triathletes, which when swallowed, would transmit current  body temp to your Garmin, just like HR and pace. Such things exist (they've been used in research for at least a decade), and I'm sure @ least 10,000 triathletes would be willing to pay $100/year for the presumably non-reusable things, if only for use in hot IM races. A nice suplemental retirement income, if I can just get Garmin interested

lcomer

Thanks so much for the feedback!