Yes. I'm sure it's a confluence of being older (now in the 50-54ag), getting up between 4-4:30 most mornings to get that first workout in, being somewhat sleep deprived and the fact that as I've gotten older the trend seems to be that I tolerate heat less well and cold better.

It could also be that in the winter it's more volume based and in the summer there are more days w/higher intensity work.

Don't get old and always live where it's eternal spring or fall is my best advice.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Did Du Nationals this year in Alabama. Was 91 degrees and 80% Humidity when race went off. Coming form NY there were it was 44 degrees the week before. Any advice on how to acclimate next time. One friend suggested siting in a sauna 30 minutes a day before.

Even early mornings, at least here in the Houston area, are brutal as well. Pick your poison - early mornings are upper 70s with near 100% humidity, or afternoons in the upper 80s/low 90s with 50-60% humidity. I ride mornings in the summer, but even today was an z1/2 ride and I still sweat out about 6 lbs in 90 minutes. Jersey currently hanging in the shower until I can do some laundry, I can hear the drips of sweat falling off and hitting the floor.

Summers are just nasty.

I live in a hot and humid environment. We stay wet because our sweat doesn't evaporate. It sucks. I have been using Core provides some good data to crack the "heat code". I have been in the middle east too and its really hot there but dry heat is much easier to deal with than humid heat.

I’ve transitioned to late evenings for my runs longer than an hour. I usually leave for my run around 7pm. The sun doesn’t set until 830. So, I can still get in the better part of 90min - 2 hrs.

The air temp has come down a few degrees, and the humidity is still lowish. And the sun angle is low so there’s no solar load, and the shadows are long.

It takes about 2 weeks to acclimate. Sitting in a sauna helps, but training in it works better. Running/riding on a TM/trainer without a fan, in a warmish room works ok. You need about an hour a day of exposure for 14 days to get maximal benefit.

Thanks Tom!!

For what it is worth, I enjoy running in high (houston ) humidity. I don't want to go into the details of what I do to manage it because I think it is dangerous to do it without really knowing what you are doing. And even then, I have to be honest with myself, it comes with risks.

The only thing I don't like is the soiled clothing. I basically am as soaked as if I had jumped into a pool.

I figured someone from Houston would pipe up. Mostly just pulling y’all’s chain. I was born and raised in Dallas, and my entire family lives in Texas….about half down in the Houston area. So, there’s a long standing friendly rivalry between the northern and southern camps.

I’m probably similar….most people think I’m nuts for how I train in the high heat indexes. As you say, it takes some attention to detail and risk management.

Soiled clothes….yup. I sweat at 6 lbs and hour. I’m pretty sure it’s all still in my clothes when I’m done.

You can use steam rooms, saunas, hot baths immediately post workout.
When working out you can hot box the room your in, reduce airflow over you etc. The catch here is you need to get your core temp up yet you don't want to get it so high you crush yourself

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Great, Thanks Brian!!

A friend of mine in PA built a heat-box around her treadmill to train for Badwater

She finished before the cutoff, twice

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I live in Hilton Head Island, SC and for the past several years my workouts would be wrecked from mid/late May through maybe early July. I got tired of it and bought a pvc sauna suit from Amazon and started doing 3-4 x45 minutes easy on the bike per week in it with a space heater right after my scheduled workout (body temp already slightly elevated) - beginning in late February (although could have waited to April). Either it has actually worked OR this summer has been much much milder than the past 4 June’s because my hr is lower YoY, my pace is higher YoY, and most importantly- I haven’t had to find trees to sit under for 20 minutes mid run yet where I have to contemplate how I’m going to get back home. The sauna suit certainly isn’t enjoyable, but my n=1 experiment says it’s worth it.

I agree with this philosophy. I live in the Phoenix area, and I don't find it easy to be out the door for a ride or run at 5:00am like many I know. But I do find that going out in the late afternoon/early evening, like the last hour of daylight or so, is usually more comfortable for me than mid-mornings after 8:00am. The temperature is typically much higher, but the sun being low on the horizon seems to make a huge difference.

I always suffer recovery issues when it initially gets 100+. It can be flat out disheartening. And I wasn't even tri training. The last two years had me revisiting getting in the boxing ring until covid cancelled all the local tournaments. Unlike triathlon, boxing tournaments can be quite unpredictable. Especially for masters. You can sign up, show up, and have no opponent. Even though they try to pair before, shit happens and you show up with nothing to do. They do refund you though hahaha.

But I digress, my regiment for that was three days of boxing in the club (no ac), running a long run and a short run (outside), and power lifting (heavy and light day). The running in the heat is pervasive even with that minimal amount of exposure. After my long run, I would drag for 3 days and feel weaker the rest. It would mean strength loss, inability to put in the proper boxing gym work. But it usually worked out after 3-4 weeks.

Since getting back on the bike saddle and swimming, I'm outside a lot more. I still box an hour and a half to two hours in case an local tournament opportunity opens up. Lifting is just a thing at this point to maintain some muscle. But man, I only had a couple really bad days where a longish bike ride and a long run wiped me out a couple days. This seems to be the quickest acclimation yet. But still sucks, and always open to input.

I can't run on a treadmill more than 3 miles. I have one, but I go effing nuts if I run on it. I also have a peleton, which is good for an hour, but it isn't accurate for power. While most say it overstates power, mine understates by about 25 watts compared to my two bikes or other indoor bikes with power meters, which are consistent.

I actually lived in florida when I started tris. It was different. While I can't say the the seasons are well defined, the build up from cold and dry to the rainy season was at least gradual enough so by the time it was in the high 90s with humidity, I was good. Racing there sucked. My worst halfs were all there. It was 95 degrees with 100% humidity when I did my first IM (Great Floridian). But it wasn't like here. AZ goes from cold to cold morning very warm evenings quickly. Then it goes from that to hell fire hot quickly, only to shuffle back a couple weeks, killing whatever acclimation you earned. Then, its just hellfire hot from 8-8 through august.

Good thing I'm racing in october. That always seems to be my PR month.

Greetings from greater New Orleans area. I’ve lived in Tampa and Houston. Different kinds of heat. Nola is just gross. The air feels heavy and wet. It wasn’t even that hot this morning but the air was thick. I ran 52 minutes and lost 3lbs.

TrainerRoad has a podcast “the science of getting faster” and they do a deep dive on heat acclimation. It’s worth a listen. The scientist they interviewed did heat acclimation leading up to a mountain bike race in Puerto Rico (or possibly Central America). He said he severely underestimated the impacts of humidity, and didn’t work that into his protocol enough. It’s soul-sucking. One of Starky’s camps is in Tupelo MS and he said training there in the summer is good Kona prep, and it’s even hotter than Kona. And I’m 4 hours south of there.

I’m trying to start heat prep 2mo before a hot race. Either try to sit in a sauna or steam room a few times a week, or do easy recovery rides with no fans. Or recovery runs out in the elements.

I think this part is also key. While I do get out in the summer and feel somewhat acclimated, I’ve changed my racing schedule to be March to May, and then this year late September to early December. Regardless of level of acclimation, expecting to perform to expectations when you’re training in an area where the lows are in the mid to high 70s through the summer isn’t going to happen - unless of course you adjust expectations.

I dehydrated my first race in AZ. I had lived here 3 months at that point. More of a hydration issue. I had been in florida so long I was still on the same schedule. Needed more here.

I'm surprised you would take humidity over a dry heat.

I found IMAZ easier than Cozumel. I think Arizona was 95 when I started the run while Cozumel was only low 80s.

It was impossible to cool my body at Cozumel while at Arizona I was cool every time I was dumping water on my head/neck.

This thread needs to be split between desert and midwest/south as the techniques are very different.

A 4am run in Arizona is nice, but in Alabama it might be more miserable than running at 4pm.

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Swim - Bike - Run the rest is just clothing changes.

this is not true.

I've done more AZ summers than you over the past 5 years. You are right though, it's the getting up every day at 4-4:30 without a break that gets difficult.

I'm a born and raised New Orleanian and it's where my parents still live. There is almost no place worse in the country to train than New Orleans.

I personally like training in the heat/humidity of the summer better than the cold of the winter (on east coast US). As punishing as it can be, esp. on long or fast workouts, it makes it just that much better when the fall race season comes around and the cool dry air moves in! The key for me are routes that avoid/minimize the direct sun.

After a cold front passed through it was 57 degrees this morning and no humidity.
It felt so nice and so unexpected in North Carolina in late June.

It all ends Saturday morning...back to the furnace.

I'm a small, relatively hairless mammal, with a fairly high metabolism so the heat doesn't affect me too badly

That being said: If it's a Saturday afternoon in August and you go for a run around noontime ... If buzzards follow you as you go past the cornfield ... You might want to back it off, just a little bit

Trust me on this

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin