Temperature effect on run pacing
So I live in New Orleans (always have) where right now in July the high temperatures are averaging north of 95 close to 100F and the lows are not dipping below 85 at night. Add to this average humidity levels of around 90-95% and needless to say it is HOT HOT HOT....BRUTALLY HOT!
I have adjusted my pacing and nutrition to deal with this and have gotten a lot better at it. My HR response in the last few weeks has been really good as I have stayed hydrated and have learned to back off when I am pushing too hard (unless I'm doing intervals). My question is this:
When I change from this training environment and go to IMChoo in September (which calls for much more triathlon conducive temp/humidity), how will this be represented in my levels? Will it just be a RPE difference with a corresponding lower HR? Will I be faster? slower?
The good news is I'm going to the EN camp in Chattanooga in two weeks so I will get to test some of this out. I'm just wondering what to expect and how I should adjust both pacing and nutrition to account for the more comfortable conditions?
Thanks for the guidance,
Brandon DuMontier
Comments
sounds like you are on top of the hydration, etc, but you are asking about what to expect with pacing.
As you know, HR will be up, RPE will be up, paces will be crap when paired with that same RPE.
I'm going thru the same stuff over here in ATL. Here's what I've fallen back on, not like there's a lot of choice to it...
If I'm going to get after it on my 2 threshold pace runs, I make sure I go early, sunrise early. It's still hot & humid but it's still the best time to burn our engine hot. I haven't had any probs hitting goal paces at this time of morning, or recovering after. If I have to do one of these runs in the middle of the day, I hit the gym's treadmill. Most all of my other runs fall into one of two types.....neg splits with a very conservative start or just plain ol' survival mode. Survival mode is decent some days and very ugly on others (like today). And, I have found that if I try to crush a mid afternoon run wko with ambitious pacing when it's a Heat Index of 102*, I need a couple of days to recover and that costs me some downstream s/b/r quality time. So, I play it humble in the heat in order to make sure I hit the other wko's strong like bull.
When running in this kind of heat & humidity, it's a whole different kind of physiological response from our engines.
When you hit the Chatt Camp in 2 weeks, you will get the same kind of climate. Well, nothing really compares to New Orleans but it's that same kind of hot & muggy.
As for how the effects down the road in September, I think it's more important to think Micro ( as in, How will this run affect my next bike or run? ) and continue to knock out week after week accepting that this little block might look a little bit slow in the journal.
It will build tolerance of conditions at hand, humility, patience, toughness, for sure. So, IMO, these are intangibles that will make you faster on race day. But, I'm not gonna try to predict if you're going to run paces that will be quicker with lower RPE's just based on this. Too many other variables. You put the hard work in and you will run faster with the lower RPE's, that I will say. The risk here in regards to the climate is overcooking (no pun intended) it now and digging a huge hole that's hard to get out of with fresh legs.
Just my 2cents. Keep the change and good luck with the rest of the summer!
Brandon, I'm in the exact situation you are in, hot training, ‘cooler - relatively’ race. I live in Okinawa, Japan, and this morning at 0430 when I stepped out the door for my long run, it was 81 degrees, 90% humidity, with a "feels like" temperature of 91. When I got done 1:45 later, the 'feels like' temperature was 98 (Yahoo Weather has become the most used app on my iPhone). It sucks. Similar to you, I only focus on pace during my Tuesday interval sessions, and then only for whatever the assigned repeats are. All of my other runs are closely limited on HR and PE. It’s very frustrating to run this slow, but I know I have to do it avoid walking home after blowing up. For reference, a 3 mile test run in May (a military requirement) resulted in a 18:05 and my 'long runs' during the OS (in much cooler temps) had me averaging 7:30's-7:45's for low-mid teens volume on my Sunday long runs at a 'medium' rate of PE. In my current IM build with the WX conditions, I'm happy with 9:30 miles, I have to closely monitor my HR, and my PE feels way out of proportion to my pace. I've hit double digits miles only twice during long runs for the current build.
Now as to your actual question, I don't have any idea what to expect on game day with respect to pacing / time. I'm in for Louisville on a day advertised as significantly cooler (than previous years) due to a date change. This will be my 6th long course race and third time at the Ville. I am targeting HR and PE only on the run during this race (a big difference in execution planning from my previous races). I will only use pace as an upward limit. I actually spent most of this morning’s run thinking about this exact same question. At the end of the day, I think we have to execute smartly, watch all available metrics (especially for me things like HR and PE), and be happy with the outcome (pace and time) knowing we did all we can do. I think trying to target a pace on game day will be problematic at best and disastrous at worst. For me, the time will be what it is and for the future, I’ve learned a big lesson on race scheduling with respect to wx timing during the build.
FWIW, I have the exact same concerns about bike pacing. By the time I’m able to get out the door for rides, it’s usually mid-high 80’s, humidity in the 90’s, and ‘feels like’ temps in the 105-110 region. My bike pacing / power is taking the same hit as my run pacing. At a certain point, you have to play with the cards you are dealt ? Good luck and please continue to share any lessons learned you gather along the way.
Agree with Roy and Chris. Nothing to add. Living in South Texas, this is just the hand we're dealt. RPE and HR will both be lower of course the cooler it is, but on race day, after s/b, your body is not yours anymore! Do the best you can to factor it all in and start SLOW! Stupid slow.
Thanks again for the advice!
Brandon
The bad news...you might not appreciate it very much since you will have 2.4mi swim and 112+mi bike in the tank by the time you get to that run.
It is what it is. Keep working hard and taking care of the business at hand!
I am in a similar boat with Brandon and live around the corner from him, in Biloxi, MS. Any run after 0800 is usually brutal and my heart rate is higher NOW (in Week 12 of train) than when I started the program in May. I am maintaining roughly the same pace and my RPE feels the same but my heart rate is up by at least 10BPM.
So to add on to Brandon's question: What do I do when the program says 60min in Z1, but I can only stay in Z1 if I'm at a fast walk? Do I walk or do adjust to the temperatures by adding 10 or 15 BPM to my zones? I have 8 weeks until IMChoo and I'm starting to get concerned that my pacing is already off.
Thanks,
Jon
PS: BRANDON: See you at the training camp. Glad I won't be the only one with a wild Southern accent!
Jon,
Keep in mind that I'm still working on putting together a decent IM run myself.
But for your question...First thing I would do is make sure that the HR baseline isn't elevated to begin with. The waking HR. This would rule out the overtraining/need recovery time problem.
Assuming you're ok with that...
Second, I'd get the runs in early in order to get quality runs in, full duration.
But, if you get in a spot where you need to run in the heat of the day, don't beat yourself up over going super slow or shortening the run duration.
I would prob keep running, though it may be a shuffle/death march, but that's just me. Elevated HR in hot & humid conditions is not really something we can control.
In my mind, I would do the running, keeping it supah-ez and slow, not caring at all about pace, looking at it like a Fight in a Badwater 135 Cage Match, and I would also be quick to reduce the total time of the workout under severe conditions (which is about everyday this time of year).
The big picture has to include how much 'stress' are you putting your body under, how will it recover, and when you can stress it again.
In my eyes... let's assign a perfectly executed 3x 1mi @ threshold pace/zn4 on a 80* mild humdity day a TSS of 100. Increase that temp up to a Heat Index of 100 and I believe the TSS has to go up with it. So, if I was ok, originally, with getting 100 TSS on any other day, then I should have no prob dialing down either the wko intensity or the wko duration on the high heat index day in order to keep the TSS around 100.
Yes, it's worrisome that volume might be getting cut off as an IM approaches. But the other side of that argument is you have to respect what a fine line you're walking right now with the training stresses/recovery/repeat in order to keep building for the next few weeks.
Clearly, much of this stuff is science and much is art.
Not sure if any of this helped. If not...my bad.
Keep us updated!
I feel like the run fitness is there - I spend a decent amount of time on the treadmill - but I can't access it where it matters. So I got nuthin'! Just commiserating. I'll say this, though. I'm not going to do another late season IM for some time after this. The long days in the heat just sap me so much. IMTX 2016!!!
I've had similar thought about race scheduling and I think I'm going to start scheduling a mid summer break.
Late spring is a good time for a HIM or IM. Then, maybe take the meat of the summer out of the equation and stick to consistent training, shorter races, speed pop stuff. Then, pick up the long stuff again for a late, late fall HIM or IM. I'm going to give this a try for a couple of years for the reasons discussed in the above posts.
Thank you for the replies. We've actually had some reasonable weather down here this weekend and I'm happy to report that my HR was back on target. One thing I did notice is that my HR Zones as calculated by the EN tools are markedly different than the HR Zones calculated by Garmin Connect. So I'm trying to tweak my Connect settings to get them close to where I should be training. Otherwise, I'm feeling much better about training, now, and I've accepted the fact that sometimes I'll have to walk in order to stick to the proper zone.
Catherine - I hope Mobile was as nice as it was in Biloxi. Are you going to the IMChoo training camp in a couple of weeks?
-Jon
Early morning was nice, but by the time I got out on the bike this morning to do my RR for Toughman, it was steamy! Jon, I'm doing Toughman instead of camp. Sort of regret that decision -- camp looks like it's going to be a blast -- but this is my first year back doing any kind of racing, and I need/want to get back into the logistics swing of things!