Hot and humid tempo running

Treadmill.

I'd still go outside, but adjust your pace and more importantly, effort, by the conditions. I find this calculator helpful.

https://runnersconnect.net/training/tools/temperature-calculator/

How are you calculating your workout paces? Based off of a PR set in what weather conditions? Point being, that you have to run by feel. You know what an EZ run feels like in ideal conditions? Then run the same feeling in hot conditions...which means slowing down. Same for tempo feel, not tempo pace. Same for any track work. You have to run by feel in oppressive conditions, and therefore you must develop "the feel."

As poster above said, use a heat calculator as well as your pace calculator to attempt to dial in a better set of expectations. EZ runs could be as much as 30 seconds per mile slower as an example.

I'm pretty good at running by feel and I can adjust my pace in the heat to where my HR is in the range it would be if it were optimal conditions and I was right on pace. So while my heart may still be getting a good workout, I'm not sure my muscles and connective tissue really care that I am hot. I'm concerned that I'm not really getting the benefit of tempo or interval pace running, if I'm running significantly slower than what I can hold in good weather (or what I hope the weather is like in Chicago in October).

Don't worry about the pace being too slow for your muscle and connective tissue; it will be fine.

I am a native New Yorker but have lived in Florida for 20 years and have trained through Florida summers for 3 fall marathons, including 2 Chicago cycles since 2015.

I had to run in combined temps and dew points in the high 150s to low 160s pretty much the entire training cycle for Chicago last year. My tempo workout paces were probably 10 seconds or so per mile slower than they were for my (eventually aborted) Boston cycle earlier in the year.

Come race day in Chicago, marathon pace felt absolutely effortless on a nice overcast 60 degree day with light rain. My muscles and connective tissue were prepared just fine.

Smoove wrote:

Don't worry about the pace being too slow for your muscle and connective tissue; it will be fine.

I am a native New Yorker but have lived in Florida for 20 years and have trained through Florida summers for 3 fall marathons, including 2 Chicago cycles since 2015.

I had to run in combined temps and dew points in the high 150s to low 160s pretty much the entire training cycle for Chicago last year. My tempo workout paces were probably 10 seconds or so per mile slower than they were for my (eventually aborted) Boston cycle earlier in the year.

Come race day in Chicago, marathon pace felt absolutely effortless on a nice overcast 60 degree day with light rain. My muscles and connective tissue were prepared just fine.

I think this is still one of those what works for one person might not work for another kind of conversation. Training through last summer dug me into too deep a hole to climb out of for Chicago. I'm not convinced there's a ton of value in running slower through bad weather. We did a thread on this & it's not like altitude training at all. You're just out there running slower & wearing the body down faster. Times improve naturally when the weather gets better but did you actually gain any fitness during the summer months? If you have a good base and sustain through the summer months, that's a win. For me, I burned myself out & was exhausted by the high mileage I was running and was left flat on race day.

This summer, I'm paying closer attention to heart rate on easy days and I'm being flexible about my workouts/long runs. I'm looking for the coolest mornings/evenings instead of saying it has to be on this day and suffering through a sub par workout that I can't control because it's 80 & humid. I think the treadmill is a fine option. I've been having a better summer so far not worrying about pace on easy days & hammering the right days.

It's been 75+ every morning by 7, 8am, for the most part but I had one day at 65 last week so moved my long run up a day and knocked it out with no problem.

Heavier dude wrote:

It has been pretty hot and humid in NY lately, 80s with dew points 70+. While I'm fine running in it at an easy pace, I'm having a lot of trouble holding tempo or interval paces for the prescribed distance (doing the Daniels 56-70 2Q plan). .

Your problem begins and ends right here. Tempo isn't a pace, its a feel. It should be a good hard run that leaves you feeling invigorated afterwards. Perhaps its not the pace of your runs but the time of day you're running them? In the Summer if you are attempting to train before 7pm or after 7am, you're just asking for trouble, so no words of advice can help you. Runners have been running in the Summer, since, forever. Sentient beings make adjustments.

The last three days the dew points have been in the mid 50s to low 60s. Before that dew points got up there in the high 60s low 70s but only for a few days at a time. Regardless, why stick with a rigid plan in the first place? When the air gets thin with humidity, change the plan. It's simple.

Good skill -- "luck" has nothing to do with it.

Smoove wrote:

Don't worry about the pace being too slow for your muscle and connective tissue; it will be fine.

I am a native New Yorker but have lived in Florida for 20 years and have trained through Florida summers for 3 fall marathons, including 2 Chicago cycles since 2015.

I had to run in combined temps and dew points in the high 150s to low 160s pretty much the entire training cycle for Chicago last year. My tempo workout paces were probably 10 seconds or so per mile slower than they were for my (eventually aborted) Boston cycle earlier in the year.

Come race day in Chicago, marathon pace felt absolutely effortless on a nice overcast 60 degree day with light rain. My muscles and connective tissue were prepared just fine.

But were they? I mean you got a great time, but the reason you didn't hit your goal was a muscular one. Aerobically and fuel-wise (glycogen stores) you could have done the 2:30, but the calves just couldn't do the pace. The calves would have been better conditioned had you been able to train more specific in better conditions and could have withstood the pounding better.

What would I have done if I were you? Few months out, I'd be perfectly fine with the way you trained - you slowed down your tempo paces to account for the heat instead of killing yourself. But as you got closer and closer to your key marathon, I would have adjusted your training and do more at specific, faster paces. How could you have done that? By running the faster pace, but in shorter segments and with longer recoveries. So instead of 6xMile at HMP with 1 min rest, you could have done 10x1k at HMP with 2 min rest. Or instead of 10 mile Tempo at MP+10, 3x3 mile Tempo at MP.

That way you would have still felt the internal load of the pace (sensing the speed and adjusting the power and coordination demands), without being fried from excessive heat the longer reps and short recoveries would have created in Florida's summer weather.

So for OP, I recommend the same - far out of your key race, run slower. Closer to the key races, try to run faster, but shorten rep lengths and increase recovery segments. Also hydrate all time if it's hot!

That’s a fair comment, Phil, but I honestly don’t think that it was the cumulative of effect of the heat that ultimately cost me.

I think I just have weak calves and that is my limiting factor. The reason I think this is that I also cramped up after a winter training cycle for Boston in 2017. In fact, that was the marathon where I had to stop most often (although it was also easily the hottest, so to be fair that may be the answer they are). I also still suffer from muscle cramping randomly even though I have not been running very much recently. But who knows, you might be right.

The idea that summer training takes a cumulative toll is pretty hard to deny though. Still, I’d prefer to adjust pace and deal with it than suffer on a treadmill.

THANK YOU Phil.

I'm doing 6x800 Yassos and 5x1000 as my intervals, but will adjust for heat like you said. Why burn out if you don't have to?

I do my easy runs and Saturday LR, then a short recovery on Sunday. (My training week is Mon-Sun). Occasionally I will take a day off, but instead of a day off I'll just do 3-4 EZ now to get my mileage above 50.

I'd love to get to 70 at some point but I'm just listening to my body and not forcing it.

I also don't look at my watch on most runs, except at the half and during track work.

I agree that calves/lower legs are mostly genetic (most Kenyas have very high, small calves and very long achilles tendons), but the muscular damage is MUCH higher at 5:35 pace than at 5:45 pace. So if you always adjust for humidity and heat and train at 5:45, you don't condition them well to handle 5:35 pace of a marathon. You get the same aerobic benefits (maybe even more!) in the heat, but your muscles receive less damage than they should.

In a sense you are keeping the same stress on your heart/cardiovascular system, but you are severely reducing the stress on working muscles in terms of contractility and use of oxygen.

I'm also not a fan of a treadmill, but as I said if you get close to a competition, let's say the 5-6 weeks before a marathon, it might be worth to adjust workouts a little to make sure the pace is specific and preparing the legs and muscles for the demands of a 5:30-5:35/mi marathon.

An alternative would be to schedule your marathons in February/March after a great Florida winter training block, there are very few places that have conditions as good as Florida has in the winter months.

Another option is to do your runs in loops, and not be afraid to stop in the shade every 30 minutes for 3 minutes to drink some water, let the body cool off, and let the HR drop.

This is a good compromise that can allow the overall pace to remain higher for the same duration.

Not sure what your schedule/ where in New York you are, but running at night has really helped me, especially for faster efforts.

The Daniels calculator for heat effect is pretty large depending on the temp. For example, if you input a 5k time of 18:00 (which is 5:47 avg per mile), run in 85 degree weather, the calculator shows that as -13.8 second heat effect per mile pace than if the same race was run in more optimal conditions. So if run in optimal conditions, theoretically that same 5k effort should result in a 5:33 per mile pace (17:17 overall time).

Just keep working hard and gauge your runs by feel and effort.

If I see one more summer thread about ‘aaahhh it’s so hot I can’t run in this heat am I out of shape? I have a fall marathon ahhhh’ then i’m Going to...idk...roll my eyes even more.

Smoove wrote:

The idea that summer training takes a cumulative toll is pretty hard to deny though. Still, I’d prefer to adjust pace and deal with it than suffer on a treadmill.

Smoove, I run in GA (we're usually 5 degrees cooler than FL and probably less humidity on average). I find my fall races (coming out of the summer heat training) are faster than the spring races (coming out of cool/cold winter running) despite faster training paces in the winters. I'm curious if you experience the same thing. I'm also curious if you ever intentionally train in the heat, or if you try to avoid it with morning/evening runs. The few times I've run in FL during the heat of the day I remember being quite miserable, but is that a feeling you adjust to over a few weeks?

georgiaboy wrote:

Smoove wrote:

The idea that summer training takes a cumulative toll is pretty hard to deny though. Still, I’d prefer to adjust pace and deal with it than suffer on a treadmill.

Smoove, I run in GA (we're usually 5 degrees cooler than FL and probably less humidity on average). I find my fall races (coming out of the summer heat training) are faster than the spring races (coming out of cool/cold winter running) despite faster training paces in the winters. I'm curious if you experience the same thing. I'm also curious if you ever intentionally train in the heat, or if you try to avoid it with morning/evening runs. The few times I've run in FL during the heat of the day I remember being quite miserable, but is that a feeling you adjust to over a few weeks?

Running in Florida (at least central/south Florida) during the day during the summer is a non-starter. The dew points are consistently between 73 and 80 at 5:00 AM, which is bad enough -- at lunchtime, the "feels like" temps are pretty regularly around 110.

I would say that I'm basically used to running in the mornings during the summer (if I wake up and the dew point is 70 or 71, it actually feels like a nice day), but there's no way you could get used to running during the heat of the day, any more than you could get used to being set on fire on a daily basis.

Throw pace numbers out the window in these conditions. Just go run, and make it feel like you're giving it a good consistent effort. Try to go a pace that won't make you blow up in these conditions so that you can have a successful workout.

Most of my weekday summer runs are in the early evening hours - usually starting about 5:30 pm.

Weekend runs were sometimes started early, but were often started at 8:30 or 9:00 am.

I would occasionally go out at 2:00 pm on weekdays and intentionally suffer, but the wisdom of that is admittedly questionable.

But what I really preferred, was to see the usual afternoon thundershowers about to roll into Central Florida, and rush out of my office in an attempt to stay cool on my run by being soaked by rains. Again, the wisdom of intentionally running in a thunder shower is admittedly questionable, but being in an urban area did offset the risk a bit.