Do you think heat training has a similar affect as altitude training?

Heavyweight589 wrote:

I'm currently abroad running in 30C weather and it's exhausting. Back home it's 15C and it's only above 20C for maybe 2 weeks in the whole year.

Do you think when I get back it will be easier because it feels so tough in the heat?

Yes, running will be easier when the weather cools. I trained through hot and humid summers around Washington, DC for several years and it was always a struggle. And always there would be a few days in September when the heat and humidity broke and I'd feel like I was flying. There's a reason few marathons are run in the summer.

But this is all not the same as saying running in heat and humidity is like training at altitude. I found summer training at altitude nowhere near as difficult as training in hot, humid, weather. I once asked Peter Snell if the two were similar and he told me no, that there were different physiological mechanisms working in each situation. On the other hand, in 1968 Jack Bacheler was living in Gainesville and getting ready for the Olympic Trials which were going to be held at 7,000 ft. He had not done any extensive altitude training and at the time was really an unknown. But he made the 5,000 meter Team and was the only US runner to make the finals in Mexico, though he got very sick the day before and did not run. Later he said that he thought the reason he could run well at altitude was because he had trained in the hot, humid, weather in Gainesville.

800 dude wrote:

Heavyweight589 wrote:

Interesting. Where the benefits from the study meaningful?

Yes. Here's the original Oregon study with cyclists:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2963322/

Here's the New Zealand study with rowers:

http://bionics.seas.ucla.edu/education/Rowing/Physiology_2011_04.pdf

Alex Hutchinson has also written probably half a dozen Sweat Science columns covering this research.

It's probably the most important research on endurance that's been done in the last couple of decades. It's pretty rare that someone does a replicable study that shows a surefire way for even highly trained athletes to get faster, especially when it's a method that was not widely used. Before this research, most athletes subscribed to the common wisdom that other posters on this thread have expressed: i.e., that heat training matters only for hot races. It turns out that's not true.

The benefits of moderate training have always been known and used.

HRE wrote:

I found summer training at altitude nowhere near as difficult as training in hot, humid, weather.

On the other hand, in 1968 Jack Bacheler was living in Gainesville and getting ready for the Olympic Trials

Later he said that he thought the reason he could run well at altitude was because he had trained in the hot, humid, weather in Gainesville.

This reminds me of Benji Durden training for the potential heat of an Olympic marathon by doing all his runs in Atlanta at 12 to 2 pm wearing multiple sweat suits. Several Kenyans are known for this also.

On an unrelated note I did a quick search to be sure I was spelling Durden correctly and saw an article stating that he logged a 190 mile week at age 67.

Benji is always on my Facebook page and describes his runs frequently. He walks as well as runs and the totals are often combined. But yeah, 190 miles...He and his wife were doing something like virtually running and walking across Tennessee, I think it was Tennessee. The 190 mile week may have happened then.

Training in hot weather does improve your blood plasma volume, which helps with O2/nutrient transport. Along with adapting to running better in your hot weather, you will see a noticeable boost in cooler weather.

Any evidence to the contrary has a ton of confounding factors that are being ignored or otherwise overlooked.