Boston humidity and cramping

lots of factors PLUS the fact you have to stand still in the corals for so long.... that is what i hate about large races, the inability to keep moving and stretching...

I am one of those high humidity = slow pace runners. Aside from a "I felt slower", I have lots of historical backup to show that humidity is my demise...see my Half Marathon stats

1. Best PR is 1:24, where it was 45 degrees and almost no humidity. Average HR is 165 - 600ft climb

2. Ran last weekend at 90% humidity, cramped bad, ran a 1:30. Average HR was 182...-400ft loss

3. Two weeks prior, I ran 19 miles at low humidity at 6:48 pace, much faster than my high humid pace. This run had 1k of climb

4. Ran temp run 1 week prior for 9 miles at 6:20 pace and still had plenty of energy, no cramping. HR was 165, 300ft climb

My HR is directly proportional to my pace and high heat/humidity drives up the HR and kills me. I had plenty of fueling in all of these scenarios

My wife though, loves the heat and she killed it and got her PR by over 2 minutes. Guess I am a colder weather runner or at least all my training was in cold weather so I need to properly acclimate

eaglemariah wrote:

lots of factors PLUS the fact you have to stand still in the corals for so long.... that is what i hate about large races, the inability to keep moving and stretching...

This. I’m sure I am older and slower than everyone posting on this thread, as I had a 10:50 a.m. start. My pre-race warm up consisted of a one hour bus ride, directly to standing for 45 minutes in a port-o-potty line, then immediately walking to the start while peeling off sweats, only to stand around waiting for the gun. Not an ideal warm up.

A few miles in, massive flop sweat told me nothing special was going to happen, so I slammed on the brakes (or is that breaks ;) ? and just enjoyed the day. When you see people already puking at mile 10, you know you made the right choice. I made it to the finish line well over what I might have done in better weather, but I was also lucid, not cramping, and only mildly sore two days later.

The older and slower you get, the later start you will have, and that’s not ideal conditions to race fast at Boston. Not to say people can’t do it, but it doesn’t help your odds. The high school is packed, the course is crowded, the water stations are trashed, especially in the latter half of the course.. Plus, if it’s warm and humid, you’re going to be out there longer and during the warmer parts of the day. You do what you can, and try to have fun, but Boston is not the best place to run fast, at least for folks like me. That’s OK, though. I’m not complaining, and except for the weather, I expected everything else, and major kudos to those who did run fast.

The Crammps wrote:

Cramping had nothing to do with "humidity". Cramping happens in any kind of weather. It's a fueling problem.

Not according to the latest ideas on the topic...

Same thing happens to me, even in shorter races and workouts. My normal HR on a 4 mile tempo run averages about 160 with a high around 185 for a short amount of time. When hot and humid, my HR skyrockets to 195-199 after ten minutes. My training partner, is not affected by the heat/humidity nearly as much, even though we are about the same size and have similar training and racing performances in cool weather

Luv2Run wrote:

The Crammps wrote:

Cramping had nothing to do with "humidity". Cramping happens in any kind of weather. It's a fueling problem.

Not according to the latest ideas on the topic...

It's a Central Governor issue.

I think to that some people just do better in hot weather. I used to race bicycles when I was younger and I liked it when it was really hot as I felt I handled the heat better than most people.

I too started in Wave 3. I hadn't raced since my qualifier in Sept and didn't know what to expect. I thought a 3:50 was a good goal time. I ended up finishing in 3:43 which was a couple minute PR for me. Effort wise my pace was perfectly consistent throughout. I did start to get woozy in the last half mile (which seemed to take forever) but otherwise it went well.

Starting at mile 8 I took 3 cups of water every station. The first I would alternate Gatorade and Water each station. The next was always water. And the last was water but I would pour that down my back. I think that helped.

I have also already had a couple of weeks of training in the 60s and 70s so I think that was a plus too.

I couldn't believe how many people were walking on the Newton hills. And it just got worse to the end. I was really surprised how many people were really struggling. I had to bob and weave through the crowd. I think I literally passed hundreds of people in the last 6 miles.

I saw 7 people lying on the ground being attended to by medical personnel in the last few miles.

Everyone I talked to after the race (not a huge sample) said they had a bad day.

When you’ll be racing a marathon in humid conditions, potassium load for two days pre race. Take two to three 99mg potassium pills every time you eat for 2 days before, and eat foods high in potassium. Drink or eat high sodium (pickle juice, V8, pretzels) the evening before. Have a big electrolyte drink in the morning. Race fueling can be pretty much as you planned but if possible use electrolytes instead of plain water. Definitely test this out before a hard long run but I’ve done it before every marathon since 2013 with good results.

I literally couldn't consume fluid as fast as I was losing it, and that hurt me bad. I drank at a full bottle beforehand and at least one Gatorade every station yet I still ended up 5.5 pounds lighter than I started.

Despite knowing that I was losing the hydration battle, I couldn't have consumed any more... there is a biological bottleneck preventing me from dumping more into the system.

It was warm to start and then the sun came out around mile 17 and I got cooked for the last hour.

The real bottom line is that there are differences in our bodies that cause different outcomes in different conditions. People tend to assume everyone else is like them, and that leads to some pretty ridiculous statements, like page 1 here.

Some bodies sweat at a high rate. In the exact same conditions, some barely sweat at all. Perhaps the contents of the sweat vary too.

Those that sweat a lot in high humidity tend to have all sorts of troubles when humidity and temperature get high, and it's even worse if the sun is directly on them. Blood volume drops, heart rate goes up, electrolytes are out of balance, fuel is burned at a higher rate.

Boston on Monday was a high humidity, high road temperature, direct sunlight day.

For those who had no problems, be grateful but not ignorant that other people are destined to struggle in those conditions.

There are things that can be done to reduce the effects, if the person understands their body and knows what is coming. But some people don't understand these things (perhaps because they train in places where these factors rarely come together) and some people who do understand didn't see them coming. The sun was not expected.