Heat acclimatization during taper
Hi all!
Has been cold then cool ... warm is around the corner though and there is a significant possibility of a hot race (Patriot, 6/15, E Freetown MA). The last time I trained in heat was last August if I recall correctly. I'm about to enter taper but I'm thinking that my priority should be running and biking in the heat, even if that means reduced duration and intensity.
Do we have guidelines about preparing to race in the heat? Does anyone have recommendations?
Thank you!
Russ
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Ultimately, taper is about maximizing recovery while minimizing fitness loss. I think that can also include heat adaptation if you are careful about it in the ways you suggest. How much to cut back, of course, depends on how hot....
But an hour run down to 45 min, or shaving 5-10 sec off the pace...this sort of thing is where I go if it's sufficiently hot to need to cut back.
I'm inclined to run right after work tomorrow, for example, to begin to acclimatize...
Two key things to keep in mind about heat "acclimation":
http://www.sportsci.org/encyc/heataccl/heataccl.html#1
Here's a paragraph from the above: "Most experts agree that intense physical training in a cool environment improves physiologic responses and speeds the process of heat acclimatization. During training in cool conditions, optimal physiologic adaptations may be achieved if strenuous interval training or continuous exercise, at an intensity above 50% of VO2max, is performed for 8-12 weeks. Maintenance of an elevated core body temperature appears to be the most important physiologic stimulus."
Problem is, when training at intense levels in a hot environment, you get to (and above) that elevated core temperature sooner, and that limits you ability to keep working hard. You can use HR to help you determine how you're doing relative to core temp. EG, when doing TP or faster intervals, you want to run at the HR which you have when doing those intervals in an ideal environment (about 50F, no sun). Trying to do TP intervals at the same pace in 87F weather as you do when cooler will first raise your HR above that level, and you're so close to max HR that you can't keep going at the same pace, so you'll slow down, and not get the full benefit from the workout as to muscle fitness.
To your specific question: IMO (you can find differing expert opinion), do your key run workouts in cooler weather, to maximize fitness improvement. Do some less critical workouts in the heat, such as doing some bricks in the heat of the PM, or just a 20-30 minute jog in the PM after an AM swim. And use the sauna 20-30 minutes daily if possible to help with the physiologic changes you are trying to create.
If you simply MUST try to do some key running workouts in the heat, I opt for interval workouts rather than long steady runs. The biggest problem is with internal heat build-up. Once you get up to 102/3 or so, things start to deteriorate, and you must slow down or die. Doing intervals allows for recovery periods which enable the core temp to remain in the safe zone for the whole wko, even while doing maximum efforts at, say TP for 5-6 minutes.
Biking: usually, the bike is less of an issue, as it occurs in the morning, while it is still warming up, and you are moving +/- 20 mph, which has a wind chill factor with it. Unless you are doing a world class 100/200 meter sprint, you are not running that fast!
Thanks again for your thoughts, William.
There's enough here for me to work with. I'll keep a few key workouts in the cool mornings, but I'm going to do a little warm weather running too...
Best!
My relatively glib response (compared to Al's much more measured one) is/was working on the assumption that we were talking about the last two weeks of training, so nothing you were doing was all that "hard", e.g., TP/FTP intervals were already shorter, long runs were already shorter, etc. Hence, I thought that the choices are simpler than what I perceive Al to be talking about in a much more thoughtful and broad application.