I live in the deep south also. Currently running 25-35 mpw now. Mostly easy running, no track or tempo. Despite running 2-3 minutes less per mile, my HR creeps up into the 160-170s where normally, at faster places, it would be in the 130-140s. Is there any harm done in allowing my HR to get this high almost daily?
Houston area. This is manageable - don't run anything long between 7am and 7pm. Stay hydrated.
Not a big deal if you're a planner.
Your body does acclimate.
It's brutal. Like you, every summer I think I'm ready and every summer I get the poop beat outta me by the heat and humidity.
There are no real "tips" for dealing with the jungle like temps and conditions. I just know that the same routes that I will struggle to run 8:00 min miles on will be 6's in the Fall.
I remember going to the west coast for vacation one August and I was able to get up and run 8M in the AM and I easily could have run another 8M that evening. I understood how people can do 100M weeks with ease in the Summer. I'm not saying it's impossible to run that in The South, it's just much more difficult.
Just remember folks, people are spending money on sweat lodges and saunas to experience what us southern runners are experiencing for free.
You are right. The dozen or more experienced runners who have expressed not only how challenging they find running in the summer in the south to be, but have also expressed how those challenges have evolved over time, are simply not planning well and have not yet adapted.
He's one of those Texas Tuff Guys, ignore him. I'd hate have my kid running for someone that is to ignorant to adjust to adverse running conditions.
I make sure I stick to light beer all summer..Always run in the mornings.. carry a water bottle in hand no matter the distance of the run (can always chug or dump it on you and chunk it). Also have a liter water bottle that make sure to drink and refill 6x per day at work.
make sure to eat 10 pcs of whole fruit per day (or 3 lbs of cut or mixed whole fruit/berries/etc)
I'm in Oxford. About 50 miles from the Natchez Trace where it crosses in Tupelo.
Smoove wrote:
You are right. The dozen or more experienced runners who have expressed not only how challenging they find running in the summer in the south to be, but have also expressed how those challenges have evolved over time, are simply not planning well and have not yet adapted.
Smoove, I think you're being too harsh. I'm 60. Aging runners are constantly confronting hard truths--stuff that they used to be able to do but this season, for the first time, something has changed. I make plans based on what I've been able to do over the past five years. But the body changes. And I've been honest about that.
Still, I'm OK with re-learning some truths about how to train in the summer. None of us gets it right all the time, every time.
May this thread bless every runner who reads it with new knowledge, and old knowledge!