Beat the Heat!

Here is some cool, solid advice to beat the heat!!

From our coach Harry....
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hey ASHA folks,
we're right smack in summer and as our long runs get longer soon there
will be no more escape from some serious sun and heat exposure. This
is good in a way, because training in heat will make running in low
temperatures easier. Heat training always pays off. On the other hand
there's a few things you need to be aware of when training in warm
weather:

Your blood is needed at two fronts during a hot weather run:
- first job is supplying the muscles with oxygen and transporting
carbon dioxide and lactate away from them
- second one is providing the sweat glands with fluid to cool the body
(yep, your sweat comes right out of your blood plasma)
In this competition for blood - this is important! - the muscles
always win.You're in control. If you push yourself hard you will
diminish the blood flow to the skin and divert blood to the muscles.
This makes sense from an evolutionary point of view - there's no use
keeping the body from overheating when running from that saber-toothed
tiger...

However, in the controlled enviroment of a run you are responsible for
the balance. As it is very hard to become aware of the signs of
impending overheating, you're best off just training for it and
letting the body adapt.

Here's a few things you should keep in mind:
- we are training in California , a place with very low humidity.
Humidity, however, is a major contributing factor when it comes to
overheating. Your sweat will only cool you if it can evaporate, and
the higher the humidity the less of it can do that. So don't think
you're prepared for a 80 degree, 80% humidity race on the east coast
if you trained in 80 degree, 20% humidity west coast conditions. The
east coast race will suck the life out of you!

- drinking more will not help you unless you trained your body to
absorb more fluid and sweat it out. You can't expect to just offset
cool weather training by drinking more during a hot race. The fluid
will just slosh around in your stomach because your body doesn't know
what to do with it. Absorption rate of fluid by the stomach walls and
intestines can be more than doubled, but race day is not the time to
learn it. Remember - nothing new on race day! It takes the body about
2 weeks to adapt to heat, i.e. manage a higher fluid throughput. Take
that into account if you think your marathon will be a hot one.

- contrary to believe a high salt diet will make it harder for your
body to protect itself against the effects of hyponatremia (loss of
sodium.) The more sodium there is in your daily diet the more wasteful
the body will be with it. Try to limit your sodium intake during the
last 2 weeks before a hot race. your sweat glands will learn to retain
the sodium. You can't sodium-load! So eating salty food in the
expectation that you'll have more available during the race will have
the exact opposite effect.

- if you want to find out how your fluid balance is working out then
weighing yourself before, during and after a long run is the only true
measure. A weight loss of 2-3 pounds is no problem - that's just the
glycogen and fat you are burning for fuel going up in smoke (or rather
water vapor.) Anything above that is loss of blood plasma. Again, a
few percent of body weight is ok, but especially for beginning runners
it would be beneficial to not lose more than 2% of body weight during
a long run.

- if you do think that the heat is affecting you in a bad way, your
first line of defense is to stop running. second is to get out of the
sun. third is to apply ice or cold water externally. only fourth is to
drink more. Sweating has already failed as a cooling device, so just
drinking more will not help! Overheating is a much bigger danger to
the body than dehydration, so cooling down is the most important thing
to do.

Enjoy the heat!