I hate running in the heat. Okay, hate IS a strong word. Through five years of serious Ultra and trail racing, a trend was starting to form. Race well in the cold and fall apart in the heat. 50-mile night run in the middle of January? No problem. 50k races on a day where the high hits single digits?…I’m your man. Crisp autumn day and I’ll probably nail a PR. But as the temperature rises so do my finish times. To a certain degree (pun intended), this is probably true for everyone but for me, its really bad. Some of the most miserable days I’ve had on the trail have been during the summer months. I’ve hurled on the Psycho Psummer 50k course, I’ve lost dangerous percentages of body weight on the plains of Western Kansas, and I’ve been sun poisoned and near heat stroke in the deserts of Southern California. Now, I’m a tough guy….but if you’ve heard me whining during an ultra, chances are the temperature was over 95 F’. But this summer, something changed.
I’ve only ran two events so far this summer: the Psycho Psummer 50k on July 14th and Coleen’s Sweaty Ass run (50 miles) on August 11th. At Psycho, I ran a PR for the event in severe heat on a course that was a couple miles longer than usual. I finished the Sweaty Ass in eleven hours and some change and came through the finish in pretty good shape compared to my last 50 miler (a winter race, no less). So, what changed? For starters I did a ton of heat training as we had long stretches of days with highs in the 100’s, but that can’t be the only factor…I heat train every summer.
The last week or so I’ve been comparing this summer to the previous five and I think the real key has been getting hydration, nutrition, and electrolyte needs really dialed in. Also, putting more effort into staying cool has helped. In severe heat, you’ve got to put a ton of thought and effort into keeping your body temperature down. In other words, S-Caps in the mouth and cold water over the head! Both of which can be easily accomplished at a well supported race. At the Psycho, I ran with two water bottles; one for drinking and one for pouring. With aid stations every three miles apart it was well worth losing a little time to get ice-water into the “pouring” bottle. The glacier cold water over the head every five minutes was amazing and kept the engine running cool. I was also hitting an S-cap every 30 minutes and mixing ‘real food’ in with my usual steady running diet of gels. At the Sweaty Ass, it wasn’t as hot but I still kept a regular schedule of S-caps to keep the hydration balanced. Getting into a self-maintanence mode while I run has really allowed me to make some big gains over the last year. At both races, I was able to find new gears I didn’t know I had. But I don't think I've gotten that much faster, I’ve just started to run smarter.
During previous summers, I just kind of toughed it out. I’ve always had a blood, sweat, and tears style to my trail running. It’s supposed to hurt, right? Suck it up buttercup! Well, like my dad use to tell me when he coached my pop warner football team “Jay” he’d say, “if you’re gonna be stupid, you’d better be tough”. What he was trying to tell me was “don’t be stupid” apparently all I heard through my still-ringing helmet was “…be tough”. So I’m a slow learner. It only took me six years of running ultras to figure out that it takes a total commitment to self-care during a race to start finishing better.
There’s a reason ultra runners refer to running a “smart race”. No matter how much you train, you’ll never just ‘muscle’ your way to ultra-running prosperity. Trust me…I’ve tried. Running ultra distances is still the toughest physical thing that I do and I've still got a long way to go to get where I want to be, but I don’t ‘hate’ the heat as much anymore. There’ll always be blood and sweat, but I’ve learned there doesn’t have to be tears.
Anyway, this has been more rant than race report so it’s time to bring it to a close. Take care of yourselves out there!
