Stuff ice in front and back and wear a hat where you can put ice in as well.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

yup I do that. Even stuff ice in my jog bra. The jingling of ice is a bit weird but works

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

I did IM Couer d'Flame in 2021 (101 degrees at the start of the marathon). Here's what I did - I was a good 1.5-2 hours slower on the day than I should have been, but I also finished with no cramping and feeling mostly ok.

Gear - cooling sleeves and a cooling towel for my neck
Hydration - wore a waist hydration belt with a ~16 oz hand held in in. I'd fill the bottle up with ice, top off with water. The bottle was at the small of my back and felt AMAZING. I brought single serve drink mixes of roughly the same formula (Skratch, Nuun hydration, NBS) and changed flavors with every bottle. This kept away the flavor fatigue. I actually drank 5 x 16 oz hand helds during the run - which was a record
Feet - your feet will be super soggy from all the water/ice dripping into your shoes. Spray your toes/feet with TriSlide and that will help prevent blisters
And then just collect your entry fee's worth in ice that day.

To add on to the cooling towel, add a few drops of peppermint oil. It will give you that menthol type feeling on your skin (and you won't smell like death at the end of the marathon). Not sure if there is any scientific backing to the peppermint oil, but it makes me think I am cooler than actually am.

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IG: NCGregory8778

Thanks so much for this! Wow congrats for finishing in 101F. I remember hearing about that one. I think I would die lol. My wood fired sauna feels hot at 100F. I do stand close to the stove and sweat a lot but can't imagine moving in those conditions.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Ha! I like that!

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

If you're going to get a new trisuit before the race, get one from Zoot -- they have built in pockets for ice in the back of the neck and the torso. Not sure if any other companies have this, but my Zoot trisuit does. Great for keeping the ice where you want it, instead of it melting/sliding all over the place.

Aside from that, I'll second what someone else said -- a cooling towel for around your neck. I had one from REI with the little beads inside that absorb water. I used it for the Belgian Waffle Ride (CA) the year they did it in June, and for hiking through Utah in the summer. It helped a ton, and you can just get it wet again at aid stations as needed -- it just needs to be wet to work, not necessarily with cold water.

I'm honestly shocked that triathlon companies haven't made ultralightweight hats, vests, and arm coolers that are optimized to carry ice cubes for hot long races.

I've heard anecdotal evidence that I'm super skeptical of, like some posters trying to convince me that adding ice packs to your clothing actually causes you to INCREASE core temp because your body now thinks it's cold outside (we would have died out as a species if this was true, for sure), and I haven't seen any convincing evidence that improving external cooling is not a good thing on hot races.

Something as simple as being able to stash like 4-5 ice cubes in a hat, and some lightweight foam or something to hold the cool water for a bit in the right spot, would be great. You could squeeze it out once it's lost its cooling effect (to reduce water weight), and refill at the next stop.

I mean, if I was going to run 13.1 or 26.2 miles in 85F+ weather with little cover, you better believe I'm going to seek out the maximum cooling I possibly can. (We all already know what a godsend it is to run through a cool water sprinkler set up on such races - it's heaven on earth!)

I'm a Team Zooter and got the Kona tri suit for women. Yes, will fill those pockets with ice for sure. And I just ordered a cooling towel on Amazon an hour ago. Every little bit will help.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Awesome. In my last hot race I loaded those things up with ice (even the one that's labeled "Fuel"! 😂) They were amazing.

Check the compressport ICE cap. It's light, reflective, and it does have pockets for ice. I'm pretty sure you can stack like 4-5 ice cubes in that hat.

What was the dewpoint that day? I'm convinced that anybody who has tried to use cooling sleeves in high humidity has stopped.

Haha, yes, ice going in every single pocket! I am not embarrassed when the ice is making a jiggling noise in my jog bra. I have heard of people putting ice down their tri shorts as well. Heck if there are kiddy pools filled with ice or ice water, I may stop and sit in one for a few minutes. OK maybe joking here but I've heard Kona will be hotter than anything I can imagine. And I've done some hot races in my life.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Dewpoint was quite low. The arm coolers worked amazing. So much more than you would think. But for them to work it really does need to be rather dry. I tried to use them for a race in FL once and they didn't do much.

Yeah, I tried to use them in Maryland. Once. It *does* offer a bit of sun protection if it's a really clear day but that's about all it does.

It was dry enough in Maryland this year. But… it was also not very warm for the run. Didn’t need them.

This was at Eagleman in a year it was definitely not cool or dry :P (I had an 8:30 am start time that year, too)

You listed one of the best ones and that is holding a cup of ice in your hands. The cup of ice serves the purpose of cooling but also gives you melted (cold) water to pour on you as you run, and then refill at the next aid station.

I wear the cooling shirt from de soto- usually put it on for the run. I will sometimes also run with a cooling rag/towel (often just a second cooling shirt) and wear it under my hat. Then every aid station (or every other as needed) I dunk the cooling towel into the ice they have and throw it back on. I also will run with a bottle, and fill it with the ice water they are handing out, and squirt it on my arms/back/face as I am running. Used this method in Texas and Kona with good effect.

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We, uh, just wrote about this: https://www.slowtwitch.com/...ng_in_Heat_8802.html

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

2019 IM Chattanooga heat index was 104 at the start of my marathon.


1. You have to go slower. It's simple as that so adjust your expectations.

2. Wear light colors and a hat.

3. Learn to run with wet feet for the entire marathon. Figure out what socks to wear wet.

5. Know the dew point on race day. Anything above 65 and sweat will not evaporate and that makes everything worse. You will not cool down much even if you dump water on yourself. Ice is about the only thing that works when that happens.

6. See #1. If you don't slow down, you will be walking.

If I remember correctly ….some STer wrote here a while ago about a paper were the Navy (or something) tested what cools the core temp the most and it was ice inside the palms.

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-shoki

That's the one thing I always do on a warm/hot run. Helped when 90F at the Syracuse 70.3 and that really hot PR 70.3 run course. (loved it though). I think my first triathlon coach told me to do that.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Frozen water bottle (or ice in a bag) in the palm of your hand, swapped from hand to hand to prevent over cooling (and constricting of the blood vessels in the palm reducing the effect)
Will try to find the study later that showed quite a core cooling effect due to the high blood flow through the palm