It is well documented that many of the world’s best distance runners live or train at altitude part of the year. Spending weeks at a time away from home at altitude training camp is commonplace for professional runners. However, it’s an impractical luxury for most of us. The thought of escaping to the cool mountain air is tantalizing. But research shows running in the summer heat to have similar performance benefits to altitude training. The mechanisms that lead to those performance benefits differ, but the keys to reaping the benefits of both are strikingly similar.
Acclimating to Running in the Summer
Just like altitude, running in the summer heat and humidity can just as easily break you down as it can build you up. The first 10-14 days of hot weather is the acclimation period where the weather hits you the hardest. The warm days that cause us to wilt in April and May feel comfortable by the time July and August arrive because of that acclimation process. When athletes go to altitude for the first time the adaptation period takes up to 4 weeks. The initial dip in performance is similar to that of heat adaptation.
According to Dr. Robert Chapman, one of the world’s preeminent altitude researchers, “training intensities and volumes should be adjusted (reduced) to avoid over training and allow better acclimatization.” He could have just as easily been dispensing advice about running in the summer heat. The thought that heat could improve your performance sounds so foreign because few heed that piece of advice.
Slow Down Your Training
Training in the heat and humidity will slow you down just like altitude will. And if you don’t adjust your training appropriately you’re at high risk of over training. Acclimating to the heat doesn’t make running in the summer easy. It doesn’t mean your races in the heat will suddenly be as fast as the fall or spring. But it does mean that if you adjust your training properly your fitness can benefit greatly. East African athletes who have lived at higher elevations for generations still run faster at sea level than they do at altitude. Similarly, no matter how well acclimated you are to the heat, you’ll still run faster in cool weather.
Dr. Jack Daniels, one of the leading exercise physiologists in the history of long distance running, has a useful online calculator for adjusting your paces on warmer days. However, no calculator or training plan can be inside your body. You know your body better than anyone. Being able to understand the effort you’re putting out in a way that is independent from pace is critical to managing heat and humidity. Easy days must remain at a conversational pace, even if the pace is slower than what you think it should be.
Workout Adjustments
One training adjustment you can make to keep from over cooking your workouts is to shorten the intervals you’re running. I rarely schedule long, steady tempo runs during the summer. Instead, I prefer to shorter tempo based intervals to manage the heat. While running in the summer it’s very difficult to keep your core temperature from soaring during long, steady workouts. Adding short recovery pieces can keep your effort in the right place overall.
For example, try breaking a 30-minute tempo run into 5 x 6 minutes with a 75-90 second recovery walk or jog. The recovery will help bring your heart rate down so it doesn’t continue to climb as it works harder and harder to cool your body. In those instances it is very easy for a tempo workout to turn into a race effort. You can also lean more heavily on workouts like fartleks and hill repeats during the summer. In addition to having rest intervals, they are also structured to be more effort based than time based.
Hydration
Another more obvious key to managing summer training is staying properly hydrated. This is true of altitude training as well due to increased ventilation and drier air. Being chronically dehydrated will impair your performance but also your ability to recover day to day. It’s good practice to weigh yourself before and after your run each day. Aim to replace every 1-pound of weight lost during your run with 16 ounces of fluid.
Electrolyte replacement is often an overlooked part of hydration. You’ll also lose electrolytes like sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium through sweat. Sodium is the primary driver of fluid balance within the body. The individual variability on sweat loss and sweat concentration is wide. If you struggle running in the summer it’s worth finding a lab that can perform a sweat analysis. Most decent sized cities have a place to do this for a reasonable fee. I recently had a client find out he was losing 2,700mg of sodium per hour in the summer. That’s astonishing when you consider a 16oz Gatorade contains 230mg of sodium.
Recovery
Managing recovery is the absolute key to reaping the benefits of running in the summer heat. The heat and humidity are an added stress placed on our bodies, on top of the stress of daily training. Managing the environmental stress is where most people falter in the summer. We’re used to managing the training stress, but once summer hits we do a poor job of taking into account the impact the heat has on our training.
However, with the proper adjustments to training intensity, attention to hydration, and a focus on proper recovery the summer heat can help take your performance to the next level.
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