Deep South Runners: How do you keep 60-80m/w in the Summer

75 isn't all that warm to be honest.

Run when the sun isn't out and you'll be fine. It takes two weeks or so to adjust. Drink more and expect to feel a little more sluggish during the day.

First, you shouldn't consider your training in terms of mpw. MPW isn't indicative of any shape except your ability to run mpw, and even that can be differentiated if you are doing doubles, singles, two main long runs, etc. Think in terms of how to maximize your most important sessions. That means hitting the track later in the evening when the sun is going down to get your best effort in. Run all of your easy mileage early in the morning or on a treadmill. The heat will wear you down, especially in the gulf south where you will sweat sitting down on the porch. Only a handfull of good runners from the south have maintained high mileage in the summer and there is a big reason for that. Think about maximizing your quality sessions and keep your easy and recovery runs to as long as they need to be, not as long as you want them to hit mileage totals. You may have to take a day off or cross train one day to give your body a break. Best of luck.

Brian Wave wrote:

75 isn't all that warm to be honest.

Run when the sun isn't out and you'll be fine. It takes two weeks or so to adjust. Drink more and expect to feel a little more sluggish during the day.

Whether 75 is all that warm depends on the humidity. I think doubles are the way to go, if possible.

altoroad wrote:

Whether 75 is all that warm depends on the humidity. I think doubles are the way to go, if possible.

Nope it's really a combination of things, that depends mostly on the altitude of the Sun, then the humidity. 75/humid in the early morning or evening is easier on you than 75/dry with the Sun beating down on you mid afternoon.

I used to live in Houston and now live in the Dallas area and I maintain about 80 during my basephase in the summer. Its alot easier in Dallas just because its so much less humid. But i mean ya really you just have to run in the morning, thats all you can do. I usually try to wake up about 15-20 min earlier to hydrate before I run and I think that helps

Early morning is the most humid part of the day, its tough to rock high mileage. I purposefully never broke 75 mpw in from June-September when I lived in New Orleans

malmo wrote:

altoroad wrote:

Whether 75 is all that warm depends on the humidity. I think doubles are the way to go, if possible.

Nope it's really a combination of things, that depends mostly on the altitude of the Sun, then the humidity. 75/humid in the early morning or evening is easier on you than 75/dry with the Sun beating down on you mid afternoon.

Absolutely. 20 years in the tropics agrees with you.

malmo wrote:

altoroad wrote:

Whether 75 is all that warm depends on the humidity. I think doubles are the way to go, if possible.

Nope it's really a combination of things, that depends mostly on the altitude of the Sun, then the humidity. 75/humid in the early morning or evening is easier on you than 75/dry with the Sun beating down on you mid afternoon.

Malmo, you are by far one of my favorite posters on this board but you are 1000% wrong on this one. 75/muggy in the morning feels much worse than 75/dry. I've lived my entire life in the deep south (MS, LA) and can assure you that the locals would LOVE to have 75/dry with or without the sun beating down on us in mid-July. That's an extremely comfortably cool day in the summer for us and in most places would probably be close to a record low in the middle of July or August (the two worst months).

OP: I know everyone says deep south broadly, but the weather is a bit different in east Tennessee and western Carolinas than it is in Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Georgia. Either way, it's hot as fire between late June and late September. It's simple as running early in the morning and late in the evening. Run doubles. Whether it's 15 degrees in the winter or 95-105 in the dead middle of summer (trust me, it's the closest to hell as you can get), doubles are always great. For long runs, you will have to stop every now and then and drink some fluids. If you can, run loops where you can stop at the same spot and drink something. What has always helped me during long runs is grabbing a handful of ice cubes as I'm leaving my water break. Just take the ice and rub it all over your body until it melts away (including legs, but focus on core and head). Drink more water throughout the day, take cold showers, eat more citrus fruits, and wear lots of water resistant sun screen. And yes, Black people need sun screen too:)

Treadmill. Also how I dealt with the lack of hills in the SC lowcountry. The low was around 78, the dew point was 77 falling to 74 when it got to 90. Thunderstorms every now and then. By August you wonder why you liked running at all.Increasing the steepness will help minimize the impact of the treadmill and add some variety.

tudler wrote:

If you're running only singles and the long run is at 18, Should I do doubles to keep it up there? Go down to 50m/w comfortably? What do you DO? Don't tell me what to do, unless you do it. I'm 43 running 65 pretty easily right now, however by the beginning of July it will be over 75' at 5:30am and that lasts til the end of September.

I've done 100/week over the summer (with doubling), but I can barely handle anything longer than about 15 miles from about June - September. And even 15 is pushing it. Good luck.

malmo wrote:

altoroad wrote:

Whether 75 is all that warm depends on the humidity. I think doubles are the way to go, if possible.

Nope it's really a combination of things, that depends mostly on the altitude of the Sun, then the humidity. 75/humid in the early morning or evening is easier on you than 75/dry with the Sun beating down on you mid afternoon.

No one runs at mid afternoon in summer in the deep south. I grew up there and ran in college there, though college was better, being on the mountain.

I started running doubles last summer for the first time in 25 years because the mornings were so unpleasant at 75 degrees and high humidity that I couldn't go beyond 30-40 minutes. Running in the evening when it was 88 and low humidity was much easier.

budder wrote:

Early morning is the most humid part of the day, its tough to rock high mileage. I purposefully never broke 75 mpw in from June-September when I lived in New Orleans

The humidity hasn't changed in the morning, it's saturation temperature relative to the is closer. That doesn't make it tougher to run in the am. It's easier for two reasons : 1) lower temperatres 2) lower Sun angle.

Nappy Roots wrote:

Malmo, you are by far one of my favorite posters on this board but you are 1000% wrong on this one. 75/muggy in the morning feels much worse than 75/dry.

With that said, I'll add a qualifier, I probably should not have said "dry" because that gives the connotation that I am comparing a place like Arizona dry to the South humid. What I'm trying to say by dry is a comparison of a dry Southern day to the normal Southern humidity. When the dew point is in the 70s and temp is 75, it can be very difficult to run, I know, I've experienced it many times. However, it is much easier to run in those conditions, compared to what it would have been like to run in the afternoon of that same day.

malmo wrote:

[quote]budder wrote:

The humidity hasn't changed in the morning, it's saturation temperature relative to the is closer.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here, but I think you're confusing dewpoint and humidity. The dewpoint usually doesn't change much in the morning, but because the temperatures drop and are so much closer to the dewpoint, the humidity rises. Then as the temps rise during the morning, the humidity decreases. I think the reason the evening just before/after sunset can feel relatively good is because you get the combination of low sun angle with low humidity (temps have yet to drop) that you don't have in the morning.

pfffttt.. wrote:

have no idea what you're trying to say here, but I think you're confusing dewpoint and humidity. The dewpoint usually doesn't change much in the morning, but because the temperatures drop and are so much closer to the dewpoint, the humidity rises. Then as the temps rise during the morning, the humidity decreases. I think the reason the evening just before/after sunset can feel relatively good is because you get the combination of low sun angle with low humidity (temps have yet to drop) that you don't have in the morning.

You're the one who is confused. Humidity is irrelavant. It rises and falls (all things being equal) with temperature. Dew point is the measure of actual energy in the air.

altoroad wrote:

No one runs at mid afternoon in summer in the deep south.

Agreed, that's just plain dumb. However, when I was in high school we had practice every day at 3:00pm in August...and so did everyone else in the County. Looking back on it now, it's amazing how nobody really thought twice about it.

To the OP: There's no real easy way to do it...you just accept that the weather will be torture for 4 months out of the year and grind through it. Don't worry about paces for your runs, workouts, or long runs. If there's one thing I've learned about training in this stuff for 10 years it's that the effort you put in DOES make a difference. When the weather does finally break, you'll find energy to run paces you could never sniff in workouts over the summer.

I've done a fall marathon the last 2 years (and will be doing another this year) meaning the bulk of my training has been in God-awful heat and humidity. Slow down your runs, drink lots of water, and just run. There is no easy way to do it.

I guess I qualify as deep south, as I'm the southwest of Georgia. Running 100+ a week is easy in the summer. The way you handle mileage is HYDRATE. Drink all the water you see. I'll go out for a 15 miler in 100+ weather and feel fine because I had been hydrating so much throughout every single hour of the summer. Also, find shade to run in. One guy on my team did his afternoon runs on a half mile stretch of dirt/grass because it was completely shaded. Also run at 5am if you can.

I have more problems with 20 degrees than I do with 100 degrees.

altoroad wrote:

I started running doubles last summer for the first time in 25 years because the mornings were so unpleasant at 75 degrees and high humidity that I couldn't go beyond 30-40 minutes. Running in the evening when it was 88 and low humidity was much easier.

I grew up in the DC Area, which has some of the nastiest Summers in the country.

I have no doubt what you say is true, but from experience, most people who run in the morning aren't running when the Sun is at the same altitude as what it is when they are running in the evening. Their morning runs tend to be after 8am , which means they are finishing those runs 30-60 minutes later, or about 3 1/2 hours AFTER sunrise.

In the evenings most people tend to run when the Sun is at a lower altitude, about 7pm. When they are finished the Sun is close to setting. With that in mind the morning run will of course feel tougher than the evening run. It has nothing to do with humidity.

This is one of the reasons why the traditional scheduling of Olympic Marathons with evening starts, is never as bad as people speculate it is going to be. As those races progress the altitude of the Sun gets lower and lower.

pfffttt.. wrote:

I have no idea what you're trying to say here,

Here's an edit:

The humidity hasn't changed in the morning, it's saturation temperature relative to the ambient temperature is closer in the morning than in the afternoon.