Running in Heat and Humidity: Five Tips for Keeping Your Cool
Five Tips for Running in the Heat and Humidity
Walk out of any freezingly air-conditioned place in Savannah — airport, hotel, restaurant — into the real world, and BAM! You’re smacked with a steamroom-like wall of heat and humidity. Whoa. Just wait until you try to run.
My BF, Rick, starts a new job in downtown Savannah on July 9. (Yay! One of us needs a real job.) This weekend, we traveled there from our homes in New Jersey on a fact-finding mission to scout out real estate, neighborhoods, pools (he recently started with a masters swim program), a congregation (for my benefit), and the local running club. And the best barbecue, biscuits, low-country boil, beer, and ice cream. (Duh.)
[Important sidenote: Rick is relocating. It may take me a while, as I have a rising ninth grader and an unenthusiastic Ex, whose legal permission to move across state lines I require. Life is complicated.]
Rick (with real estate agent) indulges Southern Gentleman fantasy of house with columns (which he is NOT buying!).
I don’t have to tell you that Savannah is hot and humid. It sits at sea level just a few miles inland on the Georgia coast. While we were there, it was 78 degrees, and 95% humidity at 7 a.m. Every. Single. Day.
When you run in the heat, your body sweats to cool you down. Humidity impedes your body’s ability to dissipate heat, because your sweat doesn’t evaporate. The moisture of humidity also makes it harder to breathe, which means your muscles aren’t getting the oxygen they need to power your stride.
In layman’s terms, what happens when you try to run in hot and humid Savannah is: your body goes WHOA! What are you doing? Stop that this instant! Let’s go for ice cream, or maybe a cold beer. If you persist in this inexplicable exertion, I shall unleash a bucket of stinging salty sweat into your eyes so you can no longer read the street signs. Heh.
When Deena Kastor was training for the 2004 Olympic Marathon, in Athens, Greece, which would take place in the high heat and humidity of August, she prepared for the conditions by running in a long-sleeve black shirt, black tights, and black cap. Full-body Saran Wrapping would’ve provided a better simulation.
Conventional wisdom says you acclimate to heat and humidity within a couple of weeks. But ask long-time residents and members of the Savannah Striders Running Club that question and you get a different answer.
Ribs, collard greens, and red rice from Wall’s BBQ (est. 1963) are a good way to replenish sodium lost through sweaty runs. Right?
Is it ever NOT humid in Savannah? No. The runners shake their heads readily, vigorously, decisively. It is never NOT humid in Savannah. It is always humid.
Oh, okay, but you get used to it, right?
No, no, no. More ready, vigorous, decisive head-shaking. You don’t ever get used to running in this humidity.
So how do you deal with it?
These five tips came with help from the Savannah Striders Running Club. Join them when you’re in town!
Savannah Striders’ Saturday morning run at Coffee Bluff Marina: Rick and I are far right (and in back)
1. Run as early as you can stand to
The Savannah Striders’ weekend runs start at 7 a.m. In July, the Sunday run will move to 6:30. During the week, members meet at 5:30 a.m. For many mothers—especially the teachers among us—that early start is NBD.
But what about running in the early evening, when the humidity is lower? The problem with THAT is that the roads are still radiating all the heat they absorbed during the day. At the 6 p.m. start of the Athens Olympic Marathon, the roads radiated 100 degree heat. Yikes.
2. Pick a shady route
Many of Savannah’s streets are shaded by classic Spanish-moss-draped oak trees. (See Rick’s fantasy house above.) The brick walk along the river is not. On our very first run in Savannah, Rick and I felt like we were motoring in our run through town and by the waterfront, but Garmin told us we were barely managing a 12-minute-per-mile pace. Oof.
“Do you get used to this humidity?” I asked Cori (in pink), mom of a 4-year-old and 6-month-old. “Nope,” she said. “Never.”
3. Drink a lot (+ electrolytes)
“You learn where all the water fountains are,” says Savannah Strider Cori, an audiologist and mother of two.
You can stash a bottle and do loops or carry a hand-held. (I use a Nathan flask.) The American College of Sports Medicine recommends three to six ounces of water every 15 to 20 minutes.
Related: Remember your electrolytes. Rick and I had to stop by the local Fleet Feet to get the NUUN we’d forgotten to pack.
On runs longer than an hour, you need to replenish sodium, potassium, magnesium, and other minerals lost through sweat. Lauren Antonucci, owner of Nutrition Energy, and a certified sports dietician on the New York City Marathon nutrition team, recommends 750 milligrams of sodium per 1 liter (or about 33 ounces) of fluid. Read your labels: Many sports drinks we rely on for carbs don’t contain that much sodium.
4. Determine your sweat rate
If you really want to know exactly how much you need to drink when you run, you can determine your own personal sweat rate. This is also a fun way to pretend like you’ve lost weight. Whee!
To do this, weigh yourself (nude) before and after an easy one-hour run in which you don’t drink any fluids. Every pound you lose is equivalent to 16 ounces you need to replace. So if you lose two pounds during a one-hour run, you know you need to drink 32 ounces of liquids for every hour of running. (If you drink during your sweat-rate test, simply add those ounces to your needs.)
Crawfish says, Go Loco Slow! (That’s low country slow to all y’all; from Tybee Island’s famous Crab Shack)
5. Know you’ll slow
When it’s hot and humid, especially when you’re not used to it, you’re going to slow down. It’s just a fact. Speaking from recent anecdotal experience, a 4.5-mile run in sudden heat/humidity feels like a 10-mile run in less-oppressive conditions. (Beer, barbecue, and not enough sleep exacerbate the effects, according to one recent DIY study. Alas.)
How slow should you go? Your body will let you know. Rick and I struggled to maintain contact with a 10-minute-per-mile group on a 5-ish mile run with the Savannah Striders. That night my calf muscles were as twitchy as if I’d run twice the distance.
For a more scientific answer, your pace will slow anywhere from 5% to 15%, depending on the dewpoint, which measures how much moisture is in the air. When the dewpoint is over 65 degrees, your run is gonna feel harder. (You’ll find the dewpoint on your weather app.)
Whether or not you ever totally acclimate to high heat and humidity, you do get used to dealing with it. Deena Kastor did: She took home a bronze medal from the 2004 Olympic Marathon. Pretty sweet.
Either way, it will make you a stronger runner come fall when the humidity drops. Though if you live in Savannah (Hi Rick!), or another similarly moisture-prone area, you might have to come visit me in the Northeast for a cooler, drier, faster run.
How do you deal with running in the heat and humdity?
#316: Special Father’s Day Episode 2018
Sarah and co-host Amanda Loudin sit down with three father runners to get a look inside their lives. From early morning workouts to crying at the end of a race, the guys aren’t all that different from the gals. First up is Ty Francis, a trail runner/triathlete and a divorced dad of three young sons. A physical therapist, Ty tells why he adopted a guiding principle of training everyone should consider following. He also reveals why he had to let go of feeling competitive. Discover why he spent 22.5 hours on a bike—the reason will tug on your parental heart strings. Next, father of two Michael Goff joins the conversation. A newbie runner, Michael quickly describes himself as “athlet-ish, not athletic.” Laugh along with SBS and Coach Amanda as Michael explains why he doesn’t allow himself to go on Strava until at least an hour after a run. Courtesy of Michael, you’ll learn more acronyms (BRC; VBRF; BADR) to add to your vocab (in addition to BAMR). Michael is the first of two dads to admit to crying at a running race—the other one is the third guest, David Yonker. This Iowan father of two tells how he became an avid runner because of his wife. A pastor, David confesses a simple-but-clever trick he sometimes employs to catch his breath on a run. He talks about how he and his wife take turns with training cycles and workout times. Find out how the mighty Mississippi River factors into David’s life—as well as a fond fatherly memory of SBS.
In the introduction, Sarah and Amanda reminisce about the eerily similar athletic lifestyles of each of their recently deceased fathers, and how these strong men influenced their own sporty lives.
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5 Tips for Keeping a Training Log
True confession: I ran this morning so I’d have something to write in my training log.
Do you keep a training journal? Or some other kind of record of your running, cross-training (cough), foam-rolling (cough-cough)?
Probably you do: 81 percent of runners like to track all their running statistics, according to the 2017 National Running Survey put out by Running USA, and 63 percent do so with an app.
The allure is understandable: Garmin Connect, or Strava, or Trainingpeaks, or Whatever Else You Use does the work for you, tracking all the nifty details like mile splits, average heart rate, max run cadence, and calories burned.
Well, yeah.
I ran as hard as possible (on the downhills!) because I knew I was going to post this. And is why I DON’T “connect” on Garmin Connect! PS I don’t trust the “calories burned.” Future column!
My love affair with training journal has gone in a big circle.
When I trained for my first marathon back in the not-smartphone-lit Dark Ages, I scribbled the number of miles I ran every other day or so on a black-and-white Life In Hell wall calendar. Without irony. Oh, the irony.
I moved on to a spiral-bound Nathan Running Log, then the Complete Runner’s Day-by-Day Log and Calendar. They piled up. My triathlete husband persuaded me to use a revolutionary-in-the-1990s software called The Athlete’s Diary, which allows you to track mileage AND use a search function. Whee!
Well, you know how THAT story goes: The husband left, the computer seized. All gone. Poof!
In those post-divorce Dark Days, I ran more than ever but I quit taking notes. Looking back, I’m sorry I stopped, because as painful as those years were, I miss having records of the milestones (literal, figurative) along the way.
Old-school, hand-written, pen-to-paper notes are just so much more evocative than the cold hard facts that Garmin collects (though I like to look at those too!).
“Don’t all those old training journals pile up?” asked Fast Teacher Friend’s husband, N Bret.
Well, yeah.
But it’s fun to see the miles accumulate. And it’s a harmless self-indulgence to take a nostalgia trip through old logs and relive races long past. It’s amazing how a few words from many years ago can conjure a specific memory, as 1972 Olympian and old-log-book-collector Jeff Galloway has noted.
How you use a training journal (or your favorite app) is, of course, entirely up to you. Here are a few things to consider:
1. Choose Your Notebook
This is as personal as your running shoes or sports bra: Choose what works for you. Supermom Lauren Fleshman publishes a beautiful leather Believe Training Journal that offers space to write, reflect, set goals, along with tips and motivation. Bullet journals were all the rage a few minutes ago among the highly energetic. My eye needs both a monthly calendar and space for details, but I live in a tiny house, so I’ve settled on small yearly notebooks. July’s as good a time to start as any. Call it a Mid-year Resolution.
Lauren Fleshman’s leather-bound journal has pages of tips, exercises, workouts, goals, and comes with undated weekly pages, so you can start any time. Like now!
2. Pick Your Stats
What do you want to record in a training journal? Distance, time, and pace are obvious. Weather and route are optional. How the effort felt (and heart rate, if that’s your m.o.) can provide valuable feedback and trend-spotting. Cross-training, strength-training, foam-rolling, resting. Napping! (I wish!) Got a twinge in the right hamstring? Note that so you can track if it flares into full-blown injury or passes without further fuss. The masochistic might record their weight.
I make note of migraines, as fatigue and dehydration are both triggers. Organized and analytical folks note which shoes they ran in like a shoe-odometer; depending on a variety of factors, you need fresh kicks at the 350-500 mile mark. Do it for a while and you’ll learn what works for you (I never mastered the shoe-odometer).
My current choice: A little notebook with monthly calendars in front; weekly spreads for more words; and blank pages for race deets.
3. Record Race Deets
Sure, when (if) you run a race, the organizers will most likely provide online time, place, and maybe even mile splits. But there are countless other race-experience details you’ll be glad you noted if/when you ever return to the distance. The most useful notes I’ve reviewed include what I consumed the night before the race (carbs, protein, wine). What exactly I ate and drank before the race and when exactly all that happened. Poop success. All the boring mile-by-mile details that no one wants to hear but me.
Motivate like a pro: Inside @shalaneflanagan’s (wowza) training journal
4. Get Motivated
If you’re targeting an aggressive or specific goal, your journal is the best place to write it as self-motivation, as do countless high-profile elite runners such as Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher. There is all kinds of literature about intentional positive goal-setting. (Hello, Deena Kastor!) That said, be kind to yourself. If your training log reveals that you got in only two of your planned five long runs before your event, resist the temptation to beat up on yourself. Instead, use that knowledge to inform a goal consistent with your fitness.
Painting an IKEA bedside table because the books are piling up! (Shelf and door are still in progress.)
5. Enjoy the Journey!
Run for a few years, and everything will change. This week’s podcast had so much wisdom on how the definition of “joy” in running changes over the years. That’s especially true for mothers with small children. (The kids grow up!) Your time, priorities, fitness, and midsection shift. All good. In the moment, keeping a training journal can provide five minutes to pause and consider what you did with your day. In hindsight, a training journal provides a window on how you live your life. Like your teenage diaries without the wince-inducing boy craziness. You don’t do THAT with Garmin Connect.
Yeah, hard-bound, pen-to-paper training logs pile up. Consider them badges of accomplishment.
If you keep a training log, what kind of details do you find most useful?
HIKING THE GRAND CANYON RIM TO RIM: THE MENTAL LEVEL
Learning lessons, one self-timer selfie at a time.
NOTE: This is the second in a three-part series: Part I is the Physical Level; Part III is Training + Logistics.
Ever since I made the decision to say goodbye to my old running self, I have been in a pretty good space, mentally. I’ve been swimming and strength training and hiking and biking. For the past three months, I’ve even been running a little bit: 20-35 minutes, twice a week on a flat gravel path.
Part of that ease has come from the fact that I haven’t given myself an opportunity for comparison. I’m solo for most of my workouts. When I swim with the local master’s team, I am solidly in the middle of the pack. Good enough. When I get passed (as I do often) during my 3-mile jaunts, I could care less; I am out here RUNNING.
Even during harder moments, I found some perspective.
And this Grand Canyon adventure was not just about going Rim to Rim; it was also about a little mental readjustment. I still very much feel like a BAMR; I will always make exercise and my physical health—and as such, my mental health—a priority.
I still classify myself as an athlete, but if I’m being honest, that identification currently feels more fragile than I’d like it to. For about 20 years, I entered a running race or triathlon at least a handful of times a year. I didn’t necessarily love to race, but I craved pinning on the bib and being part of the athletic crowd at the expo, in the corrals, at mile 12. That was all the validation my athletic ego needed.
Even when I crossed a finish line later than I wanted to, I still crossed the finish line. I got the medal, made the memories, felt the momentum of the crowd and just plain felt good.
I ran the Philly half marathon over 1.5 years ago, and I am 99% sure I’ll never return to a straight-up road race. Even though I rationally know that, it kind of hit me like an avalanche as I took my requisite pre-event gear picture: How will I feel when I don’t pin on a bib?
I had kind of shoved that question into the back of my brain, and let it hibernate there.
The good news: for 95% of the Canyon trip, I was good. The mentality that one grows as an endurance athlete—just keep moving forward; eat + drink regularly; there will be low moments so expect them; there will be high moments so appreciate them; think about how you want to feel at the end of the race when you feel amazing at the beginning—came in handy multiple times.
Jo and Jess (the J-Team) were also integral to my staying present and grateful. Jess is the epitome of Be Someone on Whom Nothing is Lost and Jo falls right in beside her. Sometimes I would see her stopping and looking over her shoulder. “I just want to be sure I see everything,” she explained. Oh yeah, we’re only in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Thanks for the reminder.
Yes, the J-Team would definitely admit that I was a little bit dictatorial about not lingering too long, but that was mostly because of the unknown: How hot would it be in the Box? How long would it take us overall? Was one of us going to run into a big issue? I wanted to give us as thick of cushion of time as possible just in case we needed it.
Most of the time, I was WOOOOOOOO!
But that other five percent of the time was, I admit, tough for my athletic ego.
At one point, as we were descending, a fit woman came flying down the trail and passed us. We said hello, and she said something like, “I’m just excited for eight hours of quiet today.” My mind immediately leapt into the comparison game: Eight hours? She’s going to cross this whole thing in eight hours? Why aren’t we going faster? We need to go faster. Could I cross in eight hours? Why didn’t I train harder? I kept my thoughts to myself.
The second episode came later in the day. We were leapfrogging all day with a dad (who is a cyclist when he’s not hiking the Grand Canyon) and his 17 year-old daughter, who runs track and cross country. They were really friendly and chatty—she was the one who recommended the non-negotiable Ribbon Falls—and it was like running into old friends each time we saw them. They’d typically pass us on the trail, then we’d see them again at a rest area.
The last time they passed us, we were headed up the north side. I tried to hang with them for a bit–the J-Team and I were kind of strung out, and I knew we would gather up again sooner than later. As the daughter sped ahead, I stayed on the dad’s heels for a bit in a non-aggressive (and hopefully non-annoying) way. My breathing got a little faster, my legs let me know they were being challenged, and the relentless sun overhead made it all feel harder than it should.
I could’ve pushed myself to keep up; I know it was physically possible. But I soon fell back and slowed down. I just didn’t want to push. I didn’t want to hurt. I usually feel that way in races—I’m good, no need to pick it up—and never really think twice about it, but in the Canyon, the sentiment carried way more self-judgment and -criticism than it usually does.
I’m guessing because when I was meh about my pace in a random half-marathon, I used to count on another race around the corner to rectify things–even if I adopted the same mentality in the next race. There was always the opportunity to pin on the bib, to cross the finish line. My life isn’t over: There will always be more opportunities. It’s just that they don’t feel as accessible to me now.
Maybe those two incidents don’t sound like much, but right now, they are as vivid in my mind as Ribbon Falls was. They were both integral reality checks in this pivotal chapter of my BAMR life. I was reminded that switching from athlete to adventure mode isn’t just like turning off a bathroom light my kids leave on. I kind of thought it would be (#dangit). I also kind of hate that I am giving them so much attention, but identifying + owning them is more valuable than denying them.
The eight-hour crosser? She said one more thing, something that, when I slow my thoughts and tell the judgmental Dimity to STFU, truly soothes those prickly feelings like aloe on sunburn.
As she powered by us, she mentioned that she could never find two friends that would do something like this with her. When I think of her saying that, I feel like I won the BAMR lottery.
Thank you, Jess and Jo, for allowing ALL of me—the disciplinarian, the comparer, the athletic ego, the bad singer—to come through the Canyon with you. All the pieces of me are very grateful, and wouldn’t have missed a minute of it.
And thank you for teaching me how to do my first dab. My kids were properly embarrassed.
#315: Rediscover Joy in Running
Dry Martini: The Well is Dry
Like I said a few weeks ago, I knew my late April through early June was going to be a crazy busy time, full of stuff that I wanted to do. It started with Seneca 7, which rolled into the Pittsburgh half, which morphed into the retreat in Ogden (and my complicated trip home), which sashayed into an evening at the Freihofer’s Expo in Albany and my 25th college reunion in PA this past weekend. This coming weekend will be the last four miles of my marathon spring when SUNY Oneonta hosts its Reunion Weekend, which I’ll be working.
Given that I spent the the winter training for this busy season, I thought I’d have the stamina. But I’ve hit the mile 22 wall, y’all. My heinie is dragging.
Speaking of heinies, there were free massages by the Barefoot Space at the Freihofer Expo. If you ever have the opportunity to have someone walk on your arse, do so.
Before my giddy-up got up and went on without me, I did something I’ve never done before: I ran a timed mile. It seemed like a great idea when I floated it. I’ve been feeling faster lately, what with a six-minute PR at PGH, and the running has been loose and easy.
One of my pet hypothesises is that there are two types of runners: those who like to go long and those who like to go fast (that’s what she said). I am a runner who’d much rather lope along forever than run really quickly for more than 15 seconds. Speedwork is always on Wednesday, so I spent Tuesday dreading that timed mile — even though I was the one who’d asked Coach Christine to put it on the schedule in the first place. How much is this going to suck, I wondered. Will my legs finally just fall off?
My kids spent the drive to Pennsylvania in various states of unconscious. Would that I could have, too.
This kind of inner dialog is exactly the way to make sure the run will suck. You get more of what you focus on when you’re dealing with behavior. Focus on how annoying your teen can be and that’s all you’ll ever notice. Fix your mind on how frequently your co-worker sniffles and that’s all you’ll ever pay attention to. And obsesses about how much it hurts to run very fast and that’s all your brain will care about.
Just for the record, I’m not a big power of positive thinking gal. Norman Vincent Peale can get stuffed, imo. Still, our brains can easily get stuck in ruts that color our perception of reality. If nothing else, I know that going into anything thinking it will be terrible almost guarantees that it will be.
However, I still dread Wednesdays because I find it hard to follow my own advice.
While I’ve enjoyed all that I’ve done this spring, one of the best parts was returning with this guy to the place where we met 25 years ago.
The warm-up mile was great, so was the cool-down mile, even though I thought I might barf. That mile in the middle? The one where I took off at a speed I could not maintain, had to slow up in the middle bit because I thought I might die, and freaked out because everything hurt by the last 400 meters? It was hard.
It was also slower than I’d hoped. I was pretty sure that I could bust out a 10:15 or faster, which for me is like greased lightning. What I managed was a 10:28, zippy but a little disappointing because I’ve been feeling so good. The constant travel, followed by the constant catching-up from the constant travel, couldn’t have helped, nor could my less-than-positive mental game. Still. It really sucked the wind out of my running sails.
My flaccid canvas stuck with me into the weekend, where my training plan called for seven miles either before I left for bucolic Meadville, PA, or while I was there. I opted to do them on Saturday morning, even though I know how hilly that town is. My alma mater must have a track, I reasoned, even though I have no memory from 25 years prior to draw from. In my four years at Allegheny, I never once set foot in the sports complex, which is where the track and football field were rumored to be. I was a theater major and spent most of my time in the dark.
There is a track, I discovered. It is guarded by a locked, 10-foot high fence that I couldn’t figure out how to scale without impaling myself. So I took to the trails and roads around the campus for five miles, then to the (open) indoor track when the bugs and humidity outside got on my last nerve. I was a wrung-out sponge by the time I was done. And that desiccated state has hung on.
I do love a good and muddy trail run every now and again.
I’m certain once I get back to a solid routine of sleeping in my own bed for reasonable amounts of time and eating food that didn’t come from a buffet steam tray, my sponge will rehydrate. Which also reminds me that I really need to up my NUUN and dial back on the coffee. I just need to get through my college-of-employment’s reunion weekend, most of which I’ll spend driving a golf cart around campus and talking until I run out of words. Come Monday, I can refocus on the basics — just in time for Voldesun to make his return.
Do you like to go long? Or fast?