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

NOAA wrote:

The humidity isn't lower in the evening, the temperature is.

You obviously don't live in the southeast.

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'm over 40. Grew up and live in the South. I'm not running doubles but run 60-75 mpw. I train up to 4 times a day when I add my cycling, walking and weightlifting. I do the same all year. My long run is 3 hours (24-25 miles). It's already been 90 degrees. I run at anytime I want but usually a long run in the morning. Sometimes I run a short 30-60 mins run indoors or mix a run indoors and outdoors.

People like me are adapted for the high heat and humidity so our bodies will not lose salt like someone who is not adapted to our conditions. If I were you I would have more salt intake. I'd take in extra electrolytes. I hope the allergies don't get you like they get me. Good luck.

I have lived in Georgia my entire life and still sweat like a beast all summer long (long run = leaving sweat prints with my shoes on concrete). Your best bet is the much advised early morning or late evening run. Early morning will be more moist, but evening will be hotter temperature. For me, I prefer morning runs because it gives me the rest of the day to re-hydrate, whereas running in evenings will mess with my sleep as I will be too dehydrated and not sleep well.

The best thing you can do for yourself mentally, also, is leave your watch at home. You will have zero chance of maintaining normal paces during summer and will stress out over it. Just go by feel and wait till Fall when you will really feel the summer training benefit you those first cool days/races.

if you can swing it from a schedule perspective, i've always found that running late night--after 10pm, was the way to go. tough to pull off if you are working, but fine if you are in school / doing a summer job.

the tricky question is... where do you put down your mileage if you get back after 12pm? what if you leave after 12pm? One summer I would run after 11pm almost every day and finally decided to just to put the mileage down for the day I had been awake.

NOAA wrote:

The humidity isn't lower in the evening, the temperature is.

I meant the humidity is much lower in the evening compared with the morning. The temperature is higher though. Still prefer the evenings.

Fred Savage wrote:

NOAA wrote:

The humidity isn't lower in the evening, the temperature is.

You obviously don't live in the southeast.

The humidity isn't lower in the evening and I am from Atlanta. The dewpoint is pretty much the same all day on a normal summer day. "Relative humidity" is different, but that means nothing to a runner - dewpoint is the only fixed measure of humidity that matters to a runner. If the temperature is 70 and the dewpoint is 70, the realtive humidity (how much moisture air at a given temperature can hold) is 100%. If the temperature is 90 and the dewpoint is 70, the relative humidity is less than that, but the absolute humidity (how much moisture is in the air) is the same.

"People like me are adapted for the high heat and humidity so our bodies will not lose salt like someone who is not adapted to our conditions."

I am from Atlanta and grew up in the south and have always hated and performed badly in the heat and always liked and performed well in the cold. The main factor of heat vs. cold tolerance is probably ratio of weight to body surface area. Sure, I get acclimated for me after a few weeks, but no amount of running in the heat makes me do well in it compared to others. Meanwhile, when I moved to North Dakota yeas ago, I ran in far fewer clothes than the natives.

Benson St. Wales wrote:

I have lived in Georgia my entire life and still sweat like a beast all summer long (long run = leaving sweat prints with my shoes on concrete). Your best bet is the much advised early morning or late evening run. Early morning will be more moist, but evening will be hotter temperature. For me, I prefer morning runs because it gives me the rest of the day to re-hydrate, whereas running in evenings will mess with my sleep as I will be too dehydrated and not sleep well.

The best thing you can do for yourself mentally, also, is leave your watch at home. You will have zero chance of maintaining normal paces during summer and will stress out over it. Just go by feel and wait till Fall when you will really feel the summer training benefit you those first cool days/races.

I sweat like crazy on hot runs. I leave wet footprints and my shorts will be dripping wet in the summer and my hair looks like I got out of the shower. I can ring out my socks on most summer days. For some reason, women seem to be much better in the heat and much worse in the cold than guys are, but I am not sure why. I will finish a run completely soaked and dripping while a chick running at the same time will barely be damp.

NYCRunner wrote:

I meant the humidity is much lower in the evening compared with the morning. The temperature is higher though. Still prefer the evenings.

The humidity concept. It is not lower it is the same or even marginally higher than in the morning. Relative humidity, what you read in the newspaper, is not the measure of moisture in the air, absolute humidity is, which is reflected in the Dew Point, which is reported in your newspaper.

All a high RH means is that the amount of moisture in the air is closer to it's saturation point than when the RH is low. It doesn't say anything about the amount of moisture in the air, and the energy required to get it there. Dew Point does.

During a normal Summer day the temperature and the dew points are lowest in the morning, and closest together, which means that the RH is the highest. Just as soon as the Sun starts warming things up RH drops, but that doesn't mean that the amount of moisture in the air drops, it, in fact, [generally] remains the same. As the day wears on, and if there is a large source of WARM water nearby, water vapor will gradually replace dry air and the dew point will slowly rise. Why? becasue the absolute humidity is rising -- but the relative humidity will be at its lowest during the afternoon. Once the Sun starts dropping to the horizon the temperature drops, the dew point remains the same, so RH increases. And your right,the RH in the evening isn't as high as it is in the morning becasue evening temperatures are high in the evening than morning. The gap between even temp and evening DP is more than the gap in the morning. But the amount of absolute humidity (think dew point) in the air is actually higher. Get it?

The West Coast of the US has low humidity but the East Coast and Southern States have high humidity in the Summertime. Very simple. The East Coast has a shallow and very warm ocean with currents pushing even more warm water up from the Gulf. The West Coast has a very deep and cold ocean that is fed by currents from the North Atlantic.

In the Summer on the West Coast no matter how hot it gets it will never get hot enough to warm the ocean enough so that enough water vapor replaces dry air to raise the dew point significantly.

On the West Coast the temperature usally drops much further at night than it does on the East Coast and you will often see 90-100% RH in the mornings in the Summer. Does that mean the morning conditions are uncomfortable on the West Coast in the Summer? Not at all.

If the dewpoint is relatively the same all day long, and "relative humidity" doesn't matter, then why do I find it easier to run at 6:00 in the evening when it is 80 degrees as opposed to 8:00 in the morning when it is 70 degrees? It is not because I am not awake enough, and at those times, the sun angle is about the same. To me, relative humidity is the only thing that matters. The evening air "feels" drier to me, and I run with more ease.

My worst all time was once I guess I used too much detergent on my running shorts and 10 miles into a 14 miler my shorts were so wet that the friction b/w my legs actually made soap suds appear! I was freaking embarrassed. It wasn't out of control, but they were black shorts and the suds were white, so it was kind of obvious.

evening runner wrote:

If the dewpoint is relatively the same all day long, and "relative humidity" doesn't matter, then why do I find it easier to run at 6:00 in the evening when it is 80 degrees as opposed to 8:00 in the morning when it is 70 degrees? It is not because I am not awake enough, and at those times, the sun angle is about the same. To me, relative humidity is the only thing that matters. The evening air "feels" drier to me, and I run with more ease.

Yes the Sun angle is about the same with a big difference - as you start your run in the evening the Sun's altitude is dropping and continues to drop during the course of your run. When you start your morning run the the Sun's altitude is rising and continues to rise during your run. Do you see the difference?

Temperature is not a fungible number. Temperature is recorded in the shade. The actual "in the Sun" street temperature is going to be higher than shade temperature. In the morning the gap between the reported shade temperature and the actual ambient temps that you are running is will compound. In the evening, on the other hand, the gap between the ambient temps and the shade temps is falling rapidly.

Get it?

I've been living in the Southeast my whole life. Humidity doesn't affect me negatively at all. I actually like for it to be really humid. That way I get more wet. Wet=cooler. I am no scientist.

Brian wrote:

"People like me are adapted for the high heat and humidity so our bodies will not lose salt like someone who is not adapted to our conditions."

I am from Atlanta and grew up in the south and have always hated and performed badly in the heat and always liked and performed well in the cold. The main factor of heat vs. cold tolerance is probably ratio of weight to body surface area. Sure, I get acclimated for me after a few weeks, but no amount of running in the heat makes me do well in it compared to others. Meanwhile, when I moved to North Dakota yeas ago, I ran in far fewer clothes than the natives.

Brian, you are correct.

You're balancing heat production, which is proportional to body mass, against heat dissipation, which is proportional to surface area. Since mass(volume) increases with the cube of the radius, and surface area only increases with the square of the radius, it should be clear that weight (and heat production) will increase faster than the heat dissipation properties afforded by surface area.

Additionally, much of heat dissipation occurs in at the top surface of the body, the head and shoulders, which also contains the organ of the body (the brain) which is most affected by heat.

Advantages of smaller body mass during distance running in warm, humid environments.

Marino FE, Mbambo Z, Kortekaas E, Wilson G, Lambert MI, Noakes TD, Dennis SC.

Human Movement Studies Unit, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW, Australia.

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which lighter runners might be more advantaged than larger, heavier runners during prolonged running in warm humid conditions. Sixteen highly trained runners with a range of body masses (55-90 kg) ran on a motorised treadmill on three separate occasions at 15, 25 or 35 degrees C, 60% relative humidity and 15 km x h(-1) wind speed. The protocol consisted of a 30-min run at 70% peak treadmill running speed (sub-max) followed by a self-paced 8-km performance run. At the end of the submax and 8-km run, rectal temperature was higher at 35 degrees C (39.5+/-0.4 degrees C, P<0.05) compared with 15 degrees C (38.6+/-0.4 degrees C) and 25 degrees C (39.1+/-0.4 degrees C) conditions. Time to complete the 8-km run at 35 degrees C was 30.4+/-2.9 min (P<0.05) compared with 27.0+/-1.5 min at 15 degrees C and 27.4+/-1.5 min at 25 degrees C. Heat storage determined from rectal and mean skin temperatures was positively correlated with body mass (r=0.74, P<0.0008) at 35 degrees C but only moderately correlated at 25 degrees C (r=0.50, P<0.04), whereas no correlation was evident at 15 degrees C. Potential evaporation estimated from sweat rates was positively associated with body mass (r=0.71, P<0.002) at 35 degrees C. In addition, the decreased rate of heat production and mean running speed during the 8-km performance run were significantly correlated with body mass (r=-0.61, P<0.02 and r=-0.77, P<0.0004, respectively). It is concluded that, compared to heavier runners, those with a lower body mass have a distinct thermal advantage when running in conditions in which heat-dissipation mechanisms are at their limit. Lighter runners produce and store less heat at the same running speed; hence they can run faster or further before reaching a limiting rectal temperature.

PMID: 11211124 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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For purposes of thermal comfort analysis, skin surface area can be estimated using the following formula (the Dubois surface area):

A= 0.202*M^0.425*L^0.725

Where A is surface area [m^2], M is mass [kg], and L is height [m]

or

A= 0.108*M^0.425*L^0.725

Where A is surface area [ft^2], M is mass [lbm], and L is height [in]

According to this scaling law, doubling weight increases skin surface by 34%.

randy oldman wrote:

Why ask southerners? New York had 30 successive days with temperatures above 80, last July.

...and why would that be an issue?

Brian wrote:

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.

75 degrees is warm when the dewpoint is 80! I have gone running in the south when it was 80 degrees and foggy.

Congratulations. 75 isn't that warm for here. Within a month we'll be at a time of year which we won't see sub 75 for 5 months at any point. No big deal.

ian edwards wrote: Wet=cooler. I am no scientist.

Wet=cooler only if the wet can evaporate, or if a breeze cools the wet.

Brian wrote:

75 degrees is warm when the dewpoint is 80! I have gone running in the south when it was 80 degrees and foggy.

I hope you were kidding, Brian?

Yeah, I know the dewpoint can't exceed the temperature. But damn, it does suck in the coastal south when both are in the 80's.

I never though it would be true, but I live in Omaha, NE now and this place is worse than Atlanta, for heat and humidity in the summer. I have seen 80 degree dewpoints here frequently. I have a run that runs on the river side of the MO River levee and once this summer the floodplain was completely flooded from a dam break upstream, with the road forming a causeway, so I was surrounded by water and the dewpoing was 80 and the temp 81 at 7am, so there was a foggy haze and a shitton of mosquitos. My HR was 140 running 7:15 pace and I almost walked home.