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Given the heatwave and temperatures hitting 28 will times be a lot slower then usual?
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It varies from person to person Mike, but generally most people find they have to work harder to maintain a certain pace in the heat - so yes, times will suffer. How much depends on the person though - how much the heat affects them, what their pace is to begin with etc.
Personally I can lose up to 30 seconds a mile in very hot weather, but this is reduced by being well hydrated before I start out. The advantage of course is that come autumn and cooler weather, it feels comparatively easy and you can start bringing those PBs down!
Oh, and recovery - make sure you rehydrate well. A good tip is to weigh yourself before and after you go out to give you an idea of how much fluid you've lost. Electrolyte drinks will help compensate for salts etc. lost through sweating, but I find that fruit juice and a salty snack works just as well.
I did a PB last week over 8 miles. 50.55. But anything over 8 at the moment im about 3-4 minutes slower then my usual times.
I think part of it is definitely psychological - if you feel less comfortable, then you're likely to suffer a reduction in performance.
Increased body temperature and dehydrating quicker is bound to have an impact though. You were 7.5 min/miling tonight, but who's to say you wouldn't have been 7.3 min/miling in cooler weather? All sorts of factors contribute to running performance but controlling for everything else, I'm sure heat makes a difference. There has to be a study on it out there... I'm going to look.
Someone's done a PhD on it...
http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/3591/
'...these results provide evidence that heat and humidity combined with ozone have a detrimental effect on athletes’ performance in an 8 km time trial, it cannot be discounted that this was simply due to the heat and humidity as there was no differences in the two heat performances'.
'In addition, it can be suggested that 2 weeks of a low dosage of vitamin C and E supplementation might present some benefits for the performance outcome and immune system of trained individuals when taking part in a running competition in an ozone-polluted, hot and humid environment. These benefits will, however, depend on the regulation of the antioxidants uptake and metabolism of each subject'.
So some evidence for a physiological basis, but I'm still curious about psychological effects... might have to do a study of my own
hmm, interesting
I went out for a run about 9am saturday and managed 4.5 miles before my head felt like it was going to explode and I could barely catch my breath. I really struggle in the heat and it makes a massive difference to my performance.
As nice as this hot weather is and as much as I'm enjoying it when not running, I'm looking forward to running in colder weather again.
Its better than being a toasted, stiff bagel
Of course it has an effect and you should expect to be slower. Bob Glover has charts for how much time you can expect to lose because of heat and humidity, but I'm not enough of a geek to remember them off the top of my head.
Is anyone else finding themselves pining for our recent arctic winter? I have blissful memories of running a 10K in 3 degrees and now I think I'm unlikely to PB all summer.
yea it can become uncomfortable to run in hot weather especially long
distance!
The expert's hype on about the usual obvious issues , but information
is scarce on some important issues, like warm weather running.
Living near the sea I tend to swim first, or at the very least cold shower, in order to reduce body temp . It slows the heating process down