January: Planning for a Successful 2010

February : The Smooth or the Rugged Road?

March : Key Workouts For Off-Road Racing

April : Training Beyond Yourself

May : Introducing Youth to Endurance Sports

June : Off Road Triathlon Training

July : Dealing With The Heat

Dealing With The Heat
Michael Harlow
Founder and Head Coach
Endorphin Fitness

It is hot! We are in the middle of one of the hottest summers in Richmond history, which directly affects your training and racing. There are several steps you can take though to lessen the heat’s impact on you. This month’s column will discuss these steps.

When temperatures and humidity rise, your body is forced to work harder to sustain the same pace. This results in a higher heart rate and perceived exertion level at the same pace or power level. When this occurs, all you can do is slow down and keep the intensity level the same despite a slower pace. Your goal should be to minimize the differential between your pace on a hot day compared to a cool day. To do this, there are several things to which you need to pay attention.

Hydration is the cornerstone of your fight against rising temperatures. Staying hydrated with water throughout the day provides you with a base. With improper hydration throughout the day, you enter workouts and races in a deficit that cannot be overcome. Therefore, analyze your daily water intake first to make sure your base is secure.

When training, you must step up your awareness to hydration even more. When you sweat, you lose fluids and electrolytes (sodium/potassium) that are essential to you dealing with heat. Maintaining a proper balance of these two essential ingredients is key to your success. Though great when not training, drinking only water during training will dilute your body of electrolytes (sodium and potassium particularly) resulting in a condition called hyponatremia. Hyponatremia can cause some dire consequences and is very common as athletes try to over hydrate with water during training and racing.

Therefore, instead of water, we want to drink an electrolyte packed sports drink that supplies electrolytes as well as water to the body. There are many options on the market to choose from – some of my personal favorites include Gatorade Pro Series, First Endurance EFS, and Accelerade. Each of these drinks are packed with electrolytes to supply your needs. Furthermore, each of these are packed with calories in the form of high-glycemic carbohydrates which you are burning continuously during exercise and should be re-supplying at a rate of around 200-400 calories per hour. Err on the lower end of this range when running and higher end when cycling as your body digests food slower when running.

Once you have chosen your electrolyte drink of choice, you need to dial in two key variables: fluid and sodium intake. In general, you should be consuming 24-ounces (a standard water bottle) per hour. On hot days, you may drink more, and on cool days, possibly less. In addition to this, you want to make sure you are getting around 600-1,000 mg of sodium per hour. Most of the before mentioned drinks get you to the lower end of this scale allowing you to supplement as necessary when needed. In normal conditions assuming you are not a super heavy sweater and deal with heat well, you will be fine with around 600-800 mg of sodium per hour. If it is super hot and/or you are a heavy sweater, your goal should be to take in around 800-1000 mg/hour. To meet this level of intake, you will probably need to supplement with an electrolyte supplement. I recommend S-Caps - they have 349 mg of sodium per capsule and I have used them for years. With that said, you need to practice with these to make sure your stomach agrees with it during high intensity and low intensity training. Other ways to supplement sodium are through the use of gels or bars though not needed unless completing an event over two hours.

In addition to proper hydration, you can combat rising temperatures by simply keeping yourself cool. Wearing a visor, pouring water on your head, or placing ice strategically on your body before and during training and competition tricks your body into thinking it is cooler than it truly is resulting in less performance decline. There is one caveat in regards to this though. High humidity, which is common on the East Coast, does not allow your body to cool itself naturally through sweating which should always be your first line of defense. When humidity is low (below 50%), you want to rely on your body’s natural cooling mechanism first and avoid tricking your body into thinking it is cooler than it truly is as this will turn off your body’s signal to sweat. When humidity is high though, your body’s natural defense mechanism is already stunted so you want to do everything possible to keep your body cool through the methods mentioned above.

Practice these techniques in your training in order to dial them in for racing. Pay close attention to fluid and electrolyte levels and do the little things to stay cool before and during training. Be safe – high temperatures are dangerous but there are many things you can do to make it much safer and faster.

Michael Harlow is the founder and head coach of Endorphin Fitness (www.endorphinfitness.com) where expert coaches guide some to their first finish line and others to their finish line first. You can contact him at michael@endorphinfitness.com.

Michael Harlow is the founder and head coach of Endorphin Fitness (www.endorphinfitness.com) where expert coaches get some to their first finish line and others to their finish line first. You can contact him at michael@endorphinfitness.com.