Texas (and other warm weather) high school cross country coaches - what do you do about the heat?

When I was younger I really didn't think too much about it. I would just go out and run. In college I again didn't really think too much about the heat. And this was in Texas. When you are a kid, you don't agonize over stuff like older folks do.

wejo wrote:

so maybe I was soft).

Hmmm..... just a few years ago after the hot Chicago Marathon, weren't you, your brother and Malmo (None of you were there) telling everyone that ran it (I did) they "needed to man up" and 90's with high dew points were something you just had to deal with?

Is this a different kind of hot?

The Florida and Texas coaches wonder the same thing about the northern winter

I had never heard of indoor track when I was growing up

Remembering things wrote:

Hmmm..... just a few years ago after the hot Chicago Marathon, weren't you, your brother and Malmo (None of you were there) telling everyone that ran it (I did) they "needed to man up" and 90's with high dew points were something you just had to deal with?

Is this a different kind of hot?

No they weren't.

They were not saying any of that. They did say it wasn't that bad in Chicago - mid 70's, lower humidity, low sun/early morning - so yes it was a different kind of hot.

Remembering things wrote:

wejo wrote:

so maybe I was soft).

Hmmm..... just a few years ago after the hot Chicago Marathon, weren't you, your brother and Malmo (None of you were there) telling everyone that ran it (I did) they "needed to man up" and 90's with high dew points were something you just had to deal with?

Is this a different kind of hot?

Upper 80s and upper 90s are different kinds of hot.

Granted an XC practice is much shorter than a marathon. But once it is upper 80s I'm assuming most high schools are practicing at the normal time during the school day.

Hi HardLoper!

In Florida when it's hot, we run through it.

[quote[What do most high school coaches do with the extreme heat in certain parts of the country when the high school year starts?[/quote]

We tell them to keep well-hydrated, or else their OFF scores might turn our funny.

imagining things wrote:

Hmmm..... just a few years ago after the hot Chicago Marathon, weren't you, your brother and Malmo (None of you were there) telling everyone that ran it (I did) they "needed to man up" and 90's with high dew points were something you just had to deal with?

Is this a different kind of hot?

Whatchutalkinboutwillis?

I grew up in Texas where it was routinely close to 100 degrees with high humidity for the first 2 months of school and the last 2-3 months of school during track season.

We practiced in the morning and afternoon. We were a high mileage program.

I can't fathom it now, but our workouts were at 3pm. We got out of school at 2:30 then would either run at school or load up a bus and drive to a park 10 minutes away.

We just dealt with it.

We'd do long tempo runs (6+ miles at 5:30 to 5:15 pace) in the afternoon occasionally.

People are surprisingly resilient when they are forced to be. The only change we'd make is water breaks. We were allowed to stop on runs for 30sec or so to down some water. A lot of our workouts were done by effort.

We had practice at 6:00 a.m. in high school and 5:30 a.m. in college. Though I do remember plenty of college workouts at 3 in the afternoon, 90+ degrees as well.

Since living in the northwest for 7 years now, I've become spoiled, but still feel like those years of running in extreme heat built somewhat of a tolerance for it. Recently in Portland it was close to 100 and I ran in it. People thought I was crazy. Then at Hood to Coast, people were dropping like flies in ~97 degree heat, but I ran my fastest leg in it. Not saying it was easy or that I like running in the heat (a major reason I moved), but I think I had an advantage.

wejo wrote:

I was thinking about this today.

What do most high school coaches do with the extreme heat in certain parts of the country when the high school year starts?

When I was in high school, some years we'd practice before school started the first few weeks of the year but I don't think we did that every year, and I went to a private high school so the school was more flexible on when we could practice.

I'm curious what other people do. I wouldn't fathom going running outside if it was 98 and humid (but a friend of mine in high school did it all the time, so maybe I was soft).

My kid is in HS XC in Texas now. Sometimes they run in the morning, but usually they start practice after school, 3:30pm. Today the heat index was 101 degrees (actually, it was sunny, and heat index is based on temperature in the shade, so heat index probably was 106 or more). They just train like normal. Of course they are going slower than if the temperature and humidity were lower. But they race in nasty weather too (even at 7:30am races, the dew point usually is over 70 degrees).

To sum it up- they just run in the heat. But they run slower, of course.

I live in a warmer part of California. During summer, we often do practices in the evening. However, during school, we practice after school regardless. On the hotter days(102 or so+) we'll keep the runs on campus where we have access to water.

wejo wrote:

I was thinking about this today.

What do most high school coaches do with the extreme heat in certain parts of the country when the high school year starts?

When I was in high school, some years we'd practice before school started the first few weeks of the year but I don't think we did that every year, and I went to a private high school so the school was more flexible on when we could practice.

I'm curious what other people do. I wouldn't fathom going running outside if it was 98 and humid (but a friend of mine in high school did it all the time, so maybe I was soft).

I went to HS in Tennessee late last century. I don't recall anyone worrying about whether it was too hot.

I live in a very sunny part of California. Weather is usually good, but late spring, summer, and early autumn can occasionally have heat waves with weeks in the 95+ range (with a 100+ day a few times a year).

Summer practices are either held in the early AM or after 6 PM. If we can, we pile kids into cars (most of the upperclassmen can drive and summer practices are technically unofficial, so no school liability issues w/ having kids drive other kids) and go to nearby nature preserves where trails have enough shade to be cooler.

During the school year it gets a little dicier. If really hot days line up with workouts, we'll usually change the workout up a bit to accommodate for the heat (a hard workout in 70 degree weather can be an impossible workout in 95 degree weather--we're trying to train the kids, not hurt them). We'll rarely actually switch a workout day to an easy day, but we might slow intervals or cut workout distance. If kids are doing tempos on hot days, we'll set the tempo portion to end at or near fountains. If we're doing track work, we'll have water coolers out there. We also encourage cross training on hot recovery days--I'd rather have kids cross train and be rested for workouts than run and be exhausted the next day.

With workouts, we've found that the key is to not hesitate to pull kids if they're looking awful--anyone can talk about how tough they are, how they ran workouts in 95+ every day in high school, and how we should make the kids run (etc. etc...), but I'd much rather pull a kid who's struggling too much than let a kid pass out from heat exhaustion.

All this being said, if you have a team run anywhere where it's hot, you'll inevitably have a few heat-related incidents, and we've had 3 or 4 in the last few years. One was during a major invite run in 95+ weather (think Clovis, Stanford, etc.), where a ton of runners had trouble and one of our kids collapsed. We've also had two kids faint due to heat during workouts. Just make sure you're able to provide (or otherwise have access to) adequate medical attention and water.

We're still in monsoon season through Sept. We started practice in beginning of August. We start @ 5:15am b/c it's still 100 during the day. Some mornings are nice but can be humid @ times.

We do it like this....Houston area.

We do long runs and daily runs in the summer at 7 am until the runs become somewhat substantial. At that point we move them to 6 am.

We always work out one evening per week as this is a drier but warmer condition and this allows us to avoid bonking when meets begin.

So we have cooler temps for our big runs and then a heat acclimation run each Tuesday evening.

As August rolls around, we will introduce doubles. The doubles are initially very short - only 2 miles twice weekly. They are around 3:30-4:00 pm, so temperatures are high. But the deal is that we gradually become accustomed to it. We increase 1 mile per week until the afternoon runs are between 5-6 miles per athlete. In late September, we will begin doing some structured workouts in the warmer temperatures. Everything else up to that point has been daily run.

We've been fortunate to never have a heat related issue. I think a lot of this is staying in touch with some heat throughout the summer and gradually introducing the mid-afternoon runs in small bouts. Everything is a progression.

interesting. During our heat wave this summer I actually ran track workouts instead of long runs because I was having trouble handling the heat buildup when not stopping. With intervals I was able to manage the heat better and get in some speed work to boot.

I did one of those workouts with my 12 yo and she had this gem for me, 'You are lucky you don't have hair, my head is really hot'. I never considered that lucky before.

Oh yeah, on that 95' 78' dew day there was a 65-70 year old guy at the track and I saw him crank out 6x800.

wejo, I'm a high school runner at a school in SPC (one of St. Mark's competition). We run from 6:30-8 until mid October, when we switch to afternoon (4-6).

During the summer our team runs together in the late morning to improve our mental resistance to the heat and humidity. Because most important meets are later in the season and start at 7-8am, there really doesn't seem to be a need to run late in the day anyways.

btw have you ever come out to any texas hs xc meets? If you ever do, you should post about it because I know lots of people who would love to meet you.