Why does everyone on here think it's impossible to run in humidity?

Forgot to note: bright sun is another instrument of torture. Cloud cover can make a huge difference. I try to remember to offer prayers of thanksgiving when I have some clouds on those summer mornings.

YungFartlek wrote:

I had time to sleep on it and collect my thoughts.. I just noticed an increasing trend on here of people saying things like that. Then someone in my running club tried to justify an 8k time based on humidity saying "I ran 29:40, but the humidity and heat was worth at least 20 seconds per mile, so I easily just ran a mid 28 minute result" .. it just really grinded my gears yesterday in particular for some reason.

So you're simply trying to say, you don't like to hear people making excuses about the weather.

I think it's important sometimes to help people understand why their performance was not as good as they expected. It's actually reassuring to know how much better their time would have been in better conditions. Keeps them motivated to keep working hard in training.

jjjjjj wrote:

come on down to south florida and tell me that you would be running THE SAME PACES in this weather. heat index today was over 100 degrees. I ran nearly 16 miles between two runs, neither at a good time to run, and it was very difficult, especially on the way in to work. what in cool weather typically takes me around 55 minutes each way took 1:03 in and 1:02 home sweating like a pig both ways.

jjjjjj, where do you live in south florida? I'm thinking about moving there and have a few questions about where to run, trails, racing scene.

areusure? wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

You could adapt by increasing your heat dissipation through conduction, like the skinny Eritrean Gebhreselassie. Dump water on your head and hands too. Increase your blood volume so more blood is circulated through them.

Because here in the south heat and humidity increase together...Also, you do know that dumping water over your head is not conduction but convection (i.e., convective heat dissipation) right? Conductive heat loss would be touching a physical objective like laying on a cold bench. Convective heat loss is when a colder (than skin temps) fluid like air, water or ketchup passes across the skin.

I didn't specify that the water was conduction, but as a point of fact, yes it is. Conduction is what gets the heat from your skin into the surrounding fluid. Convection is what moves it through the fluid away from you after that, which can increase the effectiveness of conduction. But in the case of water dumped on your head, the water keeps you cool for quite a while even after it stops moving or convecting anything anywhere, simply because conduction is faster into water than air. Stand outside in freezing weather with a soaked head, even with no wind or dripping you will be shivering much more quickly than if you're dry.

Mo Farah going to the water stand in Beijing was no joke. The hairy, dry-headed Kenyans coulda, woulda, shoulda ran away from him, and almost did. But no, it was just too hot and humid for them to gap his bald-shaven, water-soaked head.

just throw on some sunscreen, run with no shirt, put on some sunglasses or hat and you'll be fine.. and of course hydration is key

silly-ass thread.

OP wants to whine about not liking someone's explanation for subpar performance, in his own running club, but expresses it by coming to letsrun and throwing out crazy generalizations whining about everyone else

Or maybe a half-decent troll?

Everyone is a big word. And in this case used wrongly.

start another topic. :)

Running in the humidity reaps benefits similar to altitude training. The air is thicker as opposed to thinner, as is the case in high altitude environments. There is less oxygen in the air, so your body has to work harder.

The kicker of course is that humidity is an inconsistent variable. Flagstaff AZ for instance, will always be x,thousand feet, but humidity changes day to day.

It's a shame there's not much research on this. All you gotta do is put some dudes on treadmills and crank up the humidity levels and see what happens.

Why does everyone on here think it's impossible to run in humidity?

Humidity is a reading ranging from aproaching zero but not reaching zero all the way up to 100%....so there is always humidity...and I have seen many people run...thus it is not impossible to run in humidity. So everybody is wrong.

Then there is relative humidity, which has something to do with family members

I hope this helps.

OP,

Just curious. Where do you live/train?

Bad Wigins wrote:

I didn't specify that the water was conduction, but as a point of fact, yes it is.

It's called convection.

Same 8K course, different days:

Hot & Humid (high 80s, ridiculous dew point), but peak shape: 26:07 1st

Cooler and less humid (low 60s, humidity not a factor), less than peak shape (i.e., after a short break and 4 weeks of just easy running): 25:35 2nd

It's the heat and humidity, stupid.

Yeah--a perfect example. Here is another one. Ran 17 last Saturday in a dew point of 60 and temps in the mid-70s. Ran at a nice clip and felt good when done, almost fresh, but not quite. Ran 17 today in very similar temps, but the dew point was 66. Started feeling ragged at about the mile 13 mark, and was glad to get the run done, having run slower than last week. Was much thirstier when I got home, and needed to drink much more.

Six degrees in dew point made a very noticeable difference.

info wrote:

Why does everyone on here think it's impossible to run in humidity?

No-one has.

can't argue with a chump wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

I didn't specify that the water was conduction, but as a point of fact, yes it is.

It's called convection.

No, it's not.

You are a nothing but a chronically spam-spewing piece of shit, so I won't bother re-explaining what I already did in the last post.