Ive been running 7:20-7:40 pace easy and now that it got hot and humid Im struggling to keep 8:00 pace under LT1? Im gonna go dumb, whats the point of winter base then?
Yeah & even then bad weather will still affect faster running. Make a pace adjustment & then it'll drop when it gets cool again. You haven't lost fitness but you're gonna drive yourself crazy & bomb a lot of workouts if you just try to hit normal paces in trash conditions.
This is extremely incorrect. Adapting means your body adapts by increasing the water % in your blood. This allows you to sweat more.. this issue is even after adapting many people in the south still sweat more than you can drink in an hour. Making 10k-marathon training impossible. I sweat 3 liters an hour.. the most I can drink in an hour is maybe 1 liter with maybe 2/3rds at best being absorbed into the blood stream. Meaning I cannot run more than about 1.5 hours in the summer in the south if you keep up max runs each day you also run into chronic dehydration where you cannot replenish the 2 gallons lost each day (assuming doubling too) so it compounds. Slowing down doesn't allow you to go further distance or sweat less over the same distance (sweat less of the the same time though). Also in the south you don't heat waves between cooler times like the NE or Midwest. It's 3-4 months before you get to a cool a day where the dew point is below 62. The Midwest/ne you can time longer efforts for the coolest days of the week. And so you can still get good training in the Midwest or ne by moving runs based on weather. If in the South and the cooler days aren't coming till October I choose to try to get speed work and just run what I can without caring about mileage and trying not to lose all water each day (maybe just 2x per week)
Altitude you can run just as far as nice weather at sea level if you slow down unlike high dew points your body shuts down once it loses water at a faster rate than your stomach can absorb. I'll go up to altitude in the summer and my pace will be much quicker than in the South in the summer.. far difference than coming down from altitude to sea level when the weather is nice. I have to about 1/2 my milage in the summer due to the temps (usually 120-140 mpw to 60-70) Don't just try to slow down. Focus on water and salt intake on longer days.
Year number 6 of Florida summer running has just begun for me. My (Garmin reported) VO2 max goes from 55 in the winter to 48 or 49 in the summer. I use the dewme app that converts my actual pace to a good weather pace. My easy pace is around 8:50 in good weather, and dewme converts my 9:15 (or whatever in summer) to around around 8:50. Seems to work well. I recommend it.
I have the same problem. I always think I will run better in the Summer when there is more daylight and "nicer" weather, but the heat kills me. I never adapt. I am just worse in Summer races than I am in Spring and Fall races. Maybe that is me, but it is something I have noticed for years.
I'm really amazed that this post was bumped up as high as it was. Look, it's simple. Heat and humidity make you run slower. Your blood moves closer to the skin to cool, and away from the working muscles, therefore they get less oxygen. Bada bing, bada boom, I said the exact same thing as everyone else, but in a different way. You do not become less fit because the weather changed.
A treadmill would fix this assuming you have air conditioning.
I'm in Vegas. There is a huge difference between 2pm right now (95 degrees) and 7am (70 degrees), When we run in the morning, the pace is about 2 minutes per mile faster.
This is extremely incorrect. Adapting means your body adapts by increasing the water % in your blood. This allows you to sweat more.. this issue is even after adapting many people in the south still sweat more than you can drink in an hour. Making 10k-marathon training impossible. I sweat 3 liters an hour.. the most I can drink in an hour is maybe 1 liter with maybe 2/3rds at best being absorbed into the blood stream. Meaning I cannot run more than about 1.5 hours in the summer in the south if you keep up max runs each day you also run into chronic dehydration where you cannot replenish the 2 gallons lost each day (assuming doubling too) so it compounds. Slowing down doesn't allow you to go further distance or sweat less over the same distance (sweat less of the the same time though). Also in the south you don't heat waves between cooler times like the NE or Midwest. It's 3-4 months before you get to a cool a day where the dew point is below 62. The Midwest/ne you can time longer efforts for the coolest days of the week. And so you can still get good training in the Midwest or ne by moving runs based on weather. If in the South and the cooler days aren't coming till October I choose to try to get speed work and just run what I can without caring about mileage and trying not to lose all water each day (maybe just 2x per week)
Altitude you can run just as far as nice weather at sea level if you slow down unlike high dew points your body shuts down once it loses water at a faster rate than your stomach can absorb. I'll go up to altitude in the summer and my pace will be much quicker than in the South in the summer.. far difference than coming down from altitude to sea level when the weather is nice. I have to about 1/2 my milage in the summer due to the temps (usually 120-140 mpw to 60-70) Don't just try to slow down. Focus on water and salt intake on longer days.
A treadmill would fix this assuming you have air conditioning.
I'm in Vegas. There is a huge difference between 2pm right now (95 degrees) and 7am (70 degrees), When we run in the morning, the pace is about 2 minutes per mile faster.
Issue is in the south inside dew points are still high compared to Vegas... But at least we only max out around 112 where you get close to 120