#16 Racing and Training in the Heat: Staying Safe and Succeeding

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome. I'm Dr Moose Herring, Orthopedic Sports Medicine Specialist.

Speaker 2: 0:06

I'm Dr Rob Green, Sports Chiropractor, Coach, Trustee Sidekick. We are Lifetime Endurance Athletes. We are Eager Lab Rats.

Speaker 1: 0:13

We are Maker of Many Mistakes. We are Family-focused sports medicine docs that are balancing family work and fitness and are enjoying the ride While we are sports medicine professionals. This podcast is not part of our professional responsibilities. No doctor, patient or coach-athlete relationship developed this podcast. We have no financial support from any outside resources. The only support we get is from our fantastic wives that sit back and look at us in complete dismay.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Welcome to HubLife. Enjoy the show. All right, Welcome back to HubLife. It's been two weeks maybe, so how have you, Moose? How have you been?

Speaker 1: 0:53

Over two weeks We've been through the wringer a little bit. The reason for the delay is my family's had some issues. My dad passed suddenly 10 days ago and then my wife's dad passed not unexpectedly four days ago. So my kids have lost two grandparents.

Speaker 2: 1:13

That was like what is that in three days?

Speaker 1: 1:15

10 and seven days.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Seven days.

Speaker 1: 1:17

That's crazy so they're shocked a little bit, and it's amazing, though the outpouring of love and support from friends and family and it's been quite overwhelming. We're now this week going to funerals and doing obituaries and looking at pictures and that kind of stuff and it's amazing the legacy these two amazing men left us. So I've been out of touch for a while but I'm back and we're going to try to leave our own legacy.

Speaker 2: 1:47

Yeah, yeah, you know that's two men that inspired a lot, and I don't know your wife's dad nearly as much, but your father we've come to know from camps and everything. Boy, he was an amazing man and left a legacy and you embody that legacy and your kids embody that legacy.

Speaker 1: 2:05

So you know it's a lot we can do to continue to move the ball forward as he did so it's amazing to me looking at I mean, we obviously we spent the last week looking back at pictures and going through events and I've had to write my dad to dad's eulogy. And how lucky am I to get to grow up with it, with a man who was an incredible role model. He really showed what being a father, grandfather, great grandfather was supposed to be, but he was a role model and he was a hero. So and I got to work with him my first job out, you know. We got to work nose to nose and he taught me more about being a physician not the technical bullshit, but about taking care of people, right. He taught us to love a family and he taught us to set just ridiculous goals and have the comfort to strive for them. So I learned a lot from him, a lot of what you guys hear on this podcast or lessons from him.

Speaker 2: 3:09

Yeah, no doubt man. And then, as we're endurance athletes, I mean grieving is so important, but, um, you know, exercises maybe hopefully help with that a little bit.

Speaker 1: 3:21

Oh my gracious, we were out at West Creek yesterday and just this sadness, halfway through one of our animals I don't know you and I are riding, I've been really sad but you know, obviously for for, you know for a great good reason, and just being out in West Creek and getting back to normalcy just to lift the sadness was, was just palpable. It was you know it was. It was remarkable how you get back into your routine and for me, exercise is mental health.

Speaker 2: 3:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:53

And you don't know what you can do. We laughed yesterday because I got off the bike and I was like woof, I'm tired and I'm going to do a 10 minute run and we got to mile one and my heart was happy. And we got to mile two and you looked at your watch and all the house on her this you did a 30 second descending for almost four miles, then mile three. It was game on. But just just the lifting of the sadness getting back into some normalcy was remarkable.

Speaker 2: 4:24

Yeah, and you know, some of you, we even tried about quickly yesterday. But one thing I think is so impressive because I can't say I've always done it is that first step is the hardest one, right, that first step it's you know, you're, you're, you're tired emotionally, physically, you're, you know heart is heavy and it's just easy. And, and you, I mean you got so many things, I mean not only the loss of one parent, but you got two, and there's just so many logistical things to do to find time to carve out for yourself to just take that step forward and and you did it, and you do it, and it's powerful.

Speaker 1: 4:56

I think if you're walking alone, that first step is not not it's tolerable. But if you got a friend who loves you and grabs you by the ear and said, no, bullshit, we're going. And you're saying, no, I'm not going, and your friend grabs you by the ear and grab you by the ear and then you're there, it's just means a lot.

Speaker 2: 5:16

Yeah, that's what I mean. That's what, right? What do we say? The swim buddies, the swim buddies doing the seal team. Right, they got swim buddies. They're the ones that untangle the parachute when they're jumping out. They're the ones that pull them up. And you know, you got people in your foxhole, man, and you see it, and it's, it's not just me. You got a lot of people that love you and and honestly, it's, it's because you do the same for so many other people. So you know we love you and if, if you're out there and you're you're hearing this, let me call your parents and you'll love them, because things change in a moment.

Speaker 1: 5:45

Yep, it can be super sudden.

Speaker 2: 5:47

Yeah Well, thanks for sharing that man. I know that's heavy, but but yeah so triathlon man, so good, good Lord, some crazy things have been going on that you're even updating me with with, with PTO.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Yeah, what happened? So you know, us Open, us PTO open, this past weekend with the USAT Olympic and Sprint and this national championships. So they had this incredible triathlon event where the first I think I don't know the specifics, but on Friday and Saturday they had the they had the men's and women's professional race and I don't know if any of you guys saw the feed, but it was remarkable the men's race there. There there was some serious banter between John Ferdino and Christian Christian Blumentfeld about, about changing of the guard and John told Christian he said you know, you keep yapping, you keep, you keep yapping, but you hadn't showed me anything. And that was the day before the race and John came out and just laid it down and I saw a post race interview. Then he, he said it's remarkable, just in his time he's been out a year, two year and a half how just crazy hard guys are writing.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Yeah, and he you know much to his wisdom he realized he was, he was, he was riding way over what he thought he could. He could ride and he backed down to the power he wanted to be at and then he had an incredible run. So just having the wisdom in the, in the guy. You know, I guess the heat of the battle to think this is not sustainable to me and back off can pay huge gains, because you saw Christian Blumentfeld come out of team one and just was lights out on the bike and then when he got off the bike he actually bet he couldn't walk for a while. So just a matter of you know, a 41 year old guy who won the Olympic gold 15 years ago is still the greatest triathlete you've ever seen.

Speaker 2: 7:55

Yeah, that's incredible, and imagine being so Christian. So for the first time, having somebody that you know, it's intimidating at the start line. He's been, he's and I don't know I'm not in his head, but I would think that, like when he tells a line, he's pretty confident. I mean, gustaf's there with him, but they train together, they know each other. But to now have Jan in the mix of somebody who's going to like really challenge you, so you're not waiting for an off day, but you're going to have to have an on day and you're going to you're going to decide, decide.

Speaker 2: 8:21

So, boy, you know Nisa be interesting. I mean that's, that's really cool and a 41 dude.

Speaker 1: 8:27

It's amazing.

Speaker 2: 8:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:28

It's good living. So it's. It's another kind of funny points about that. In Jan's post-race race interview apparently he said Christian kicked him really hard at the first buoy, yeah, and he said the thought that went through his head was this changing of the guard thing is okay, but the throne is still mine. And he said that. He said that anger he had inside drove him. So that's, that's a great you know, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 8:59

That's a fantastic and I'll tell you if. If Jan would have listened to lessons from knucklehead three or four weeks ago, he forgot to take his speed suit off coming out of the water, so that that that costs him some time. But it's just Just amazing. And then on the women's race, taylor David, taylor Nibb, who is kind of out of the USAAT development program he showed that biking is key. I mean her, her biking ability and and able to run fairly well off the bike is remarkable. That's pretty cool. Great runners like Ashley Ashley Gendle, who was runner down the whole time but she had like a three minute head start and T2.

Speaker 2: 9:41

I mean great for American showing. And then you were also talking about Justin West run it. I mean, when you told me about it, when I looked it up I was like I was like, oh, he must have run a little bit faster, but what 56 minutes compared to the 101.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Five minutes faster than the same. And then guys like Yann Ferdinand Christian.

Speaker 2: 9:57

Luefeld yeah, good Lord, it's amazing.

Speaker 1: 9:59

And he had. He had an incident in T1 where his headset was loose, oh wow. So he had to stop for a couple of minutes for for, for, for the. The can't come out and tighten his headset. That's amazing. So just amazing racing, amazing talent. It's so fun to watch and you just just just realize that just the speed and and power in these guys to lay it out there for almost four hours is amazing.

Speaker 2: 10:28

That is amazing. It is cool to see two, two US athletes doing well between Justin West and then Taylor Nib winning. And what do you? What's? What do you think's going to? What's the trajectory of PTO? Do you think what? What do you think happens?

Speaker 1: 10:42

Well, I think it's huge for a sport. Yeah, cause if you, if you watch the video from the race. But because the USAT championship was was in the same city. Yeah, there were people stacked on the side screaming yelling. The crowds are big all along the course, yeah, and these are people that are there racing themselves USAT Olympic and sprint championships.

Speaker 2: 11:06

I think it's.

Speaker 1: 11:07

I think it's, I think it's great for the energy of the sport. Yeah, and I think the you know, I think I think Jan and Taylor Nib took home a hundred K.

Speaker 2: 11:14

Yeah, the money's good, that'll gravitate. The talent Interesting distance, though. I would love to do something like that at some point. I mean it's just a yeah, I mean it's. I mean the swim has got a little bit more pulled to it, the bike and the run come. It's. Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 11:30

So in the vulnerability with Ironman right now, I mean what is what happens and that's that's allure, like if, if you could go to a race, experience a really fun race, but then spectate it and watch these, because when we go to the races it's fun because we're in the mix and you know you're watching the professional athletes on the same course and that's really fun, but you're not really experiencing the race. That was cool. When we went to Kona, we saw the you know different day racing and we watched. We watched women's race the day before the race and that was cool to spectate and that was like wow, we never really get a chance. So you know, it'd be interesting. If they can, if they can market this and they can get it out there there's, that would be. That'd be interesting as a, as a triathlete, and I would gravitate to something like that.

Speaker 1: 12:08

Yes, absolutely, and and Milwaukee did a great job with the course. It was like a four lap run course and a couple lap bike course, so you got to see these people, you know, on multiple cages come through and in the swim course they called it an Australian loop or something, where you slam part you had, you had to get it up and run like a hundred yards and die back in. Oh wow, so great spectator.

Speaker 2: 12:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Oh, that's really cool and that will cause people, spectators and athletes to gravitate toward that, and the pricing was much more reasonable. I mean, you, you, you and I both looked at you know racing US national pricing is much more reasonable than spending 800 bucks for an Ironman. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:51

Yeah, yeah. And it's not a day killer either. Like you, you can. You can race it. You can really challenge yourself. It's a true endurance event. You got some more intensity and then you can hang out with your family afterwards, rather than being in the med tent getting some IVs and waking up the next day after your, after your family's like been out there for you know, the full day and not being able to walk.

Speaker 2: 13:11

Yeah, so that's a win-win, so that's really cool. I'd be interested to see where that goes. But yeah, I love that. I love that. Yon, right, the best of the best. And maybe the goat needed lessons from knuckleheads, right, we all do it, man, we all do it. We all do it. So what a cool thing.

Speaker 2: 13:28

And then big props to Chad. I mean, chad had his first I am we were talking about that in maybe next episode we will do an interview with Chad as a first time Ironman. Chad is a great athlete but there's just nothing like that first time. And he did like Placid and just, you know, had a great day. He's just trained really, really well. So big props to him and I think it would be great content to get him on the show so that way you can hear firsthand what it was like and what he did in preparation and what he also learned afterwards. And yes, that was a really big accomplishment, especially out at Placid, which I think you had mentioned.

Speaker 2: 14:07

But it seems like every year next year might be the last year for Placid Placid's got some ups and downs about it. The locals love it, but it's also disruptive, so some don't, and you know there's always been some rumor mill that it won't come back, but then somehow it comes back and next year might be the last one. And I don't know about you. It used to be what six Ironmans in really North America that used to be called Ironman USA. It was Ironman USA Placid. That training center is beautiful, beautiful course, a little challenging to get to, but that's an iconic course. So I hope they don't stop it. But, as we know, all things come and things change, so and we lost Mount Tremblant.

Speaker 1: 14:50

Lost Mount Tremblant, which is such, I mean, that course is phenomenal and to go there and spend time in that village is phenomenal. To lose that as an Ironman is a big hit. That's a bummer.

Speaker 2: 15:00

I mean that's a real bummer Course is beautiful and it's one of the places where, because Ironmans are usually in smaller places, but because it's a ski town, they are used to having thousands of people. So even though it was consolidated down, there wasn't a huge capacity problem. So in the families, how to blast? We love the course. The swim was great, the bike and the run were wonderful courses and challenging. They're still going to have a half, but what a bummer for the full. And I can't help but think I think COVID you know my outside theory is that COVID probably really kind of killed that raise. That was a huge struggle since COVID. Canada had different ways of dealing with COVID and getting in, getting out, and it was always in flux and it was just chaotic. I think people just got kind of tired of that craziness and, yeah, that's a bummer, and that's you know.

Speaker 1: 15:55

We question where Ironman's going. They lost their CEO. They're choosing to pull some really, really key races and you have the really elevation of PTO. You have the elevation of challenge. You look at Roth this past year. I mean the pro athlete level at that race was phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 16:18

The registration sold out in 42 seconds, yeah that's amazing, yeah, so we were talking about what next couple of years are we going to do? And we sort of floated out that idea of like, well, what if we want? We did Roth back in like 2016, 15, something like that, and we were like what if we went back there? But that seems to be what we're gravitating towards, as opposed to you know, we've been in that system for a long time and it's going to be around, but that was the gold standard and I think. I think I think things just may change.

Speaker 2: 16:46

You got stuff like PTO that comes around. That's attractive. You have Roth. Who knows, maybe they sort their, they smooth out the ship and make it more enticing. To come back to Ironman, but just interesting times, yeah, very interesting times. And you see races, like you know, sometimes karma man, remember they Rev3 came out and challenge came out and they tried to come into the US. And what Ironman do? They bought races and then they bought it and some of them they killed. They squashed it, they squashed it, they bought it to kill, I mean it's a monopoly.

Speaker 1: 17:16

They squashed it.

Speaker 2: 17:17

And you know that's not a sustainable model. You're making short term decisions that you you think out of fear and then you're not sustaining the sport and look where we are now. So I hope they, I hope they make positive turns, but but lots of stuff that's out there and then hopefully maybe somebody steps up and we got some cool stuff to do. You can always race local Dude absolutely Connecticut multi sports. Say it again, and again, and again.

Speaker 1: 17:41

I mean, you can always race local, sleep in your own bed, go out and challenge yourself, be home by noon to your family. There's nothing wrong with racing with racing local.

Speaker 2: 17:50

Yeah, I think that wraps up the the kind of current updates. I'm sure there's more to come, but that'll do it.

Speaker 1: 18:03

So this week we thought we'd give you some ideas on racing and training in the heat. We're all been in the just the hot, human summer of Richmond and wherever you are there's been heat really blanketed the world. There's been all time records set in the Northwest. They've had average is average temps during the day of 110, 120 degrees. July was the hottest month on record since they started recording temperature 142 years ago. So with global warming and living in and in Richmond, the heat and humidity is very, very real. You got to be smart. You got to understand how you define it. What you do is we thought we'd give you some tips and pearls, some mistakes we've made, on racing and training in the heat.

Speaker 2: 18:55

Yeah, I've made. I made plenty of mistakes in the heat, me too we both suffered.

Speaker 1: 19:00

So you know the first. You know for the first little bit. What we're going to try to do is how do you define heat and how do you know when it gets dangerous? And we all look at the temperature. Temperature is important, but it's probably half the story. We all look at humidity and that's the amount of fluid in the air. That's a. That's a second port. You know, important part of the story and the heat index is a is a combination of that temperature and and humidity. So that gives you the quote, real feel of what you're sensing. Right, so you can have a, have a temperature of 85 degrees, but, but but if the humidity is way down, around 60 to 65, it can feel way above 90. So it's not just the temperature that has effect, it's, it's a combination of that and the and the humidity.

Speaker 2: 19:59

Which, which I'd like to refer to as sneaky hot.

Speaker 1: 20:01

Right, rob says sneaky hot and that just means it's around 90, the way it really feels, not, not, not how the temperature feels, so so so we know in Richmond our humidity goes way, way up, and so you. You can, we can walk out the door at 430 the morning. It can be 80 degrees, but the humidity can be be 75 and it can feel like 95. So you so. So we define the heat by looking at the temperature and the and the humidity, and you combine those into what's called the heat index. Okay, another important word is the dew point, and there's several articles out there that say that even the dew point is even more important than the humidity, and it's the temperature that air needs to be to for fluid to come out of it. Right, and it's like relative humidity. So it's another thing you can look at. It's very similar to heat index, and if you see a dew point that's between 65 and 70, no, it's not going to be a very comfortable day.

Speaker 2: 21:16

I've heard people really gravitate to dew point more than anything else.

Speaker 1: 21:19

Absolutely, and so if we hit the dew points above 75, it's going to be fricking miserable. You might want to stay in the AC or you might want to play checkers.

Speaker 2: 21:29

Yeah, wow, what's that range again? What's that first range? You said so.

Speaker 1: 21:34

65 to 69. 65 to 69. Is moderately uncomfortable and human Oof Okay.

Speaker 2: 21:43

And if you're running.

Speaker 1: 21:43

And if you're running it can be worse. And what this article said, 75, you should stay inside. It's absolutely miserable and even dangerous.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Yeah, which? That's a number to point out, because you look at that number you're like oh, I don't, I don't, a heat index is 98, but the dew points you might see a little bit of a lower number, but you don't realize that like anything over 70, like watch yourself.

Speaker 1: 22:06

Right. So those real four terms the temperature, the humidity, the heat index is a combination of that and dew point are very important. Now, when you go to races or if you go to events, what they're going to be using is a is what's called a wet bulb measurement, and it's it's a combination of heat, humidity and radiation of the sun, and if it's above a certain number of the event, it's canceled. College, as we move into August and college footballs meeting and starting to work out there, there are very specific rules that if the heat, in fact, sort of that wet bulb index is above a certain amount, or if you go to a race and that wet bulb index is above a certain amount, you're not allowed to compete Cause it's just way too dangerous.

Speaker 2: 22:59

Yeah, protect ourselves from ourselves and think about those, those football players out there and doing double days. And there's been, you see it, occasionally where somebody had passed away during practice. Young, healthy, and so it's. It's nothing to play around with. It happens every year.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Yeah, you know, you know, young folks die because they're covered with pads and helmets, right? They don't hydrate well and they're coming off a summer where they may have done some of their, some of their summer workouts, but most of them didn't do it all, so they are. That's their most vulnerable timeframe.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Yeah, wow.

Speaker 1: 23:38

So what's the problem with the heat? So our body has amazing ability to deal with heat, but we have to regulate between a temperature of about 98 degrees to about 103 degrees. If we get above 103 degrees, we're in trouble.

Speaker 2: 23:57

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:58

If we get below 98 degrees we're in trouble. There's a relatively small range of where we function and function well, and it's a very pretty steep drop off where catastrophe can happen. So we're all hopefully staying in range between around 98 degrees and 103 degrees when we're exercising the heat. Our body has amazing adaptations that can help us deal with the heat. We can, number one, radiate heat, and this is your body expelling heat. Just by sitting there you might feel warm, right. The second one is convection. Convection is air or water over the skin is pulling heat away. So think about walking versus riding your bike. Riding your bike, you've got a lot more air over your skin. Convection is going to pay a higher role and, coconut, when even the warm winds blow across your skin, it's still helping to get rid of some of that heat. So that's convection. Conduction is just transferred by touch, which not very important to us. The most important factor is evaporation. That's what separates humans, right. So we have the ability to evaporate fluid from our skin and this really cools us off. And as we race and train and try to deal with the heat, the focus really on all the articles that I kind of proved through is on maximizing the effect of evaporation. So those four things. So radiation is important, convection is important, conduction probably not important, but evaporation is the most important thing to think about.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Training in the heat can have true benefits, right, and we know it takes about 10 to 14 days to acclimatize yourself to the heat.

Speaker 1: 26:05

So if you have endless money and you're going to race somewhere hot, you should go there two or three weeks before and do heat training sessions to get used to the heat.

Speaker 1: 26:16

But heat, if you train in the heat, if you do certain things for the heat, there's some pretty significant adaptations that can happen to make you more fit, right. So we know that training at steady state, low heart rate in the heat, can have significant benefit. But that has a much bigger impact on your body than training at steady state when it's 75 degrees with low humidity. So you have to understand that as you do these training sessions in the heat, your TSS may not be as valuable to you as the amount of stress it puts on your system. It's gonna look at your heart rate, right, but it may not give you that true impact because heat sessions should be considered an intensity session, right? So if you're out there and you're doing this 80-20 rule even though you ran steady for an hour at 98-88 degrees. You can't consider that part of your 80. You gotta consider a part of your 20.

Speaker 2: 27:21

And anybody who's done that you would know that if you're in two in your body it just feels oof right, it's a big impact, yeah, and the recovery is longer on the back end of the ability.

Speaker 1: 27:33

So you can use your sauna or hot tub post run. That can have a similar effect. And you and I have done some sauna protocol stuff for hotter races. It's hard, you know, post run, you know post ride, going in there and sitting trying to restrict your fluid. Your body suffers right. So that can have an effect. So you can train the heat, steady your mod hard, lower heart rate. You can use a sauna or hot tub post workout and then that can help your heat adaptation. There's a couple of papers out there and I'm a little bit reluctant to mention this, but restriction of fluids. So you can train the heat and restrict the fluids and that can have an effect. Now we all know Triathlons will say he said I should restrict my fluids so I'm gonna go out here and run in the heat and I'm not gonna drink. I am not seeing that at all and I as an athlete and as a physician would not recommend that at all.

Speaker 2: 28:40

And those to correct me if I'm wrong are restrict fluids while you're in the sauna, like you can put it in your mouth and spit it out, but restrict it, so you have your kidney adaptation, but to get fluids in later on that day after your, because again that evaporation is water and how much water you're losing in the dehydration, and we'll talk about kind of how dehydration plays a role with that. But it's kind of like you hear those, your claims and, like you said, they just go no fluid.

Speaker 2: 29:06

You're like well, during, but then after, like you need to get, you get a replacement.

Speaker 1: 29:12

So don't take that restriction of fluid. We do not recommend that. You gotta take care of your overall body. You restrict fluids on a hot day. You're killing your kidneys.

Speaker 2: 29:24

That's not a good thing.

Speaker 1: 29:25

So you can train at steady state. You can increase your time exposure to the heat. However, however you're comfortable doing, you can use the heat adaptation with sauna or hot tub. You can restrict the fluids. We're not recommending that.

Speaker 1: 29:39

There are specific physiologic adaptations that happen. One you get used to a higher heart rate. So if you go out in front of the heat you're gonna have a higher heart rate. You get used to that. That altered perception of your perceived exertion your perceived exertion at a pace of 730 at 98 degrees is gonna be very different than your perceived exertion at 730 at 75 degrees. So you get kind of. You get more comfortable if you've done heat training with what that perceived exertion feels like.

Speaker 1: 30:16

You can train or get a lower core temp where you start sweating, because we know as you start to sweat you're cooling off your body. And if you're sweating at a lower core temp you're gonna be able to cool your body off better. There's increased plasma volume. Your body reacts to the heat by bringing more fluid to the cells. That can help and there's improved economy. Economy means your ability to run and ride well and efficient in the heat. So you just face to get used to it, right, and so so, so, so. So any of us that have run in Richmond in June on that first hot day, miserable as we get, if we've done things correctly and we've adapted to that heat by August and September. It's not fun but it's a little easier.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Yeah, yeah, you said increased heart rate. I thought your your heart rate will get used to it and your heart rate will stay down at the same level after you start to acclimate, correct.

Speaker 1: 31:23

Yes, so you're going to use to like a higher sweat rate, higher sweat rate higher sweat rate Gotcha, but if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're trying to run the same pace and the heat your heart rate is going to, is going to, is going to go up, to start Would you then decrease your pace then, so the heart rate stays where it should be Exactly so.

Speaker 2: 31:44

That's where heart rate shines, absolutely. So don't increase your heart rate and run to your pace and have your race race blow up because you think it's going to be the same, exactly right. That's where it can help and just accept it. Accept. Accept whatever that pace is that day, and it's a great way for you to know what pace to run in different conditions, right?

Speaker 1: 32:03

Yeah and yeah, do you think? Yes, exactly right. So so there are specific physiologic adaptations, that that happened. Your sweat rate changes, your heart rate changes, your, your perception of perceived exertion is going to change a little bit, because you're used to running the heat and hopefully your economy is better because you're used to running in, you know, in the heat. So that's how we define heat and that's what we see.

Speaker 1: 32:30

The physiologic adaptations the body has, I think, are crucial to understand if you want to try to train in the heat well, or race in the heat well. Yeah for sure. So effective training, I think the number one, one thing that that all of us have to realize is you got to be realistic. Right, and I think you stated it before. Your pace is going to be different, your power is going to be different, your perceived exertion of a pace of 715 is going to be different. You got to be, be, be, be realistic. It ain't going to be the same, it ain't going to be the same. So the number one thing for effective training is you got to be realistic.

Speaker 1: 33:12

Second thing is you got to stay hydrated, and that's pre hydrated before your workout, in your work day, and you have to say, hydrated during your workouts? Well now, that doesn't mean drinking water all day. You have to replace what the body's losing. See, hey, you have to replace the electrolytes as well. Now we now we have no gains from any company, but I use elements and I use liquid IV, and those are high in electrolytes. I use them at different, different times, but but but they've been very, very, very effective with, with, with, with with with hydration before workouts, with hydration during workouts and hydration rehydration after workouts. So find your favorite electrolyte drink, make sure it's not loaded with sugar, and it can be very effective.

Speaker 2: 34:06

Yeah, and maybe we can go into when we get to all this stuff, we can go through some practical stuff of how we do it. But that's really right. And and, like you said, hydration is the days before going into your bigger event and if you're doing sauna protocols and we can cover what ours, what we gravitate to. That's why I like restricting fluids, like is a, is a little bit of a scary thing because maybe you do it during the actual sauna, but you need to get that back in because as you heat, acclimate, you're losing all that water and you're starting to become dehydrated. So hydration with electrolytes is just so, so, so key, absolutely right.

Speaker 1: 34:42

So in every person's sweat rate is different. Every you know you know every every person's salt in their sweat is different and you know and they're very specific testing stuff you can do to tell you what your sweat rate is and what your loss of salt is. The most effective way is to do an hour workout right, weigh yourself before, weigh yourself after and see what your sweat rate is. That you you need to kind of max the conditions as close as you can to to the you know you're going to be racing and training in. That's a very easy way. If you, if you ride for an hour and you weigh yourself before, you weigh yourself after and you keep in mind what you've taken during that ride, that's a very easy way to get your sweat rate.

Speaker 2: 35:30

Yeah, and you know I'll go a little side, not a side change, a little bit more depth on that. Today was a great example. We ran today. It was hot and humid, after rain and I did that today. Now, if you're going to do that, a couple of key things weigh yourself before you run, and I would suggest that you do a naked right so we've got nothing on, because when you come back and you weigh yourself again, make sure you're naked, because if you're wearing those clothes you sweat it out, but that sweats in the clothes, so that may give you a wrong number and then you subtract that. I mean, I ran for 90 minutes today and I was gosh. I have to look it up again, but it was at least. I think I lost eight pounds.

Speaker 1: 36:06

Right.

Speaker 2: 36:07

That's eight pounds, eight times 16. Right, that's a ton of water. Now, don't drink any water Now. If you went to the bathroom, don't count that. So try to weigh yourself beforehand. Drink no fluids, don't change anything. Weigh yourself again afterwards. It's a great indication. Now you'll see the different weights that you lose in different environments. You'll start to learn a lot about your body, right.

Speaker 2: 36:27

But to separate those two things, there's your. That's your sweat rate, that's how much water you lost, and then within one liter, everybody can be totally different about how much sodium is in that one liter. So your sodium concentration you got high salt sweaters, which I'm way up there, and there's some testing. You can look up to do sodium concentration and that's very much genetic. So it's sort of a one and done test. There's some Gatorade patches that can give you a low cost and in a good guesstimate.

Speaker 2: 36:55

But your how much water you lose and then how much sodium is in that. If you're one of those sweaters that leaves white streaks all over it, you're going to be in a high sodium. I'm one of those guys, me too. I haven't officially tested sodium concentration. I'm almost certain from a lot of you get to know your lot about your body it's probably somewhere in 1000 plus or minus 200. Right, and some people will be down in 400. So the electrolyte needs are different in different people, and so be able to differentiate those two, how much water you lose, but then how much sodium is in that water, so that's different for everybody.

Speaker 1: 37:30

Then most of the research says that if your weight drops more than 2%, you're not drinking enough. If your weight goes up more than 2%, you're drinking too much, and hyperhydration leading to hyponatremia can be just as dangerous as hyperhydration. That's a big deal. So 2 plus or minus minus 2% seems to be what most of sports science folks are recommending.

Speaker 2: 38:07

Yeah, what about it makes me think of like our pre-race. I always love it when we weigh in pre-conon. They make it weigh in and you're like, oh nice and bloated, because it's kind of like eating sushi the night before you all had sodium in the soy sauce and you're retaining water. So we drink a healthy amount of fluids but a lot of electrolytes, so you are heavier, so you have the ability to have some fluid to lose. So just be careful, be smart about it. Don't do any extremes. We are not going to give any specific advice, but you look at those numbers. That way you can test, don't guess. But don't you see it's scary, especially hyponatremia, which means you don't have. You have more water than you do your electrolyte and that's. You see that in the back end of a lot of races, where people think I'm supposed to hydrate, they hyperhydrate With water.

Speaker 2: 38:57

With water alone and they water down and they dilute their sodium. That's a life-threatening problem, so don't play around with these. So take this stuff very serious.

Speaker 1: 39:08

So you've got to hydrate, you've got to use electrolytes and be mindful it should be as low sugar as you can. Yeah, for that issue.

Speaker 2: 39:15

Well, and you had the constant glucose monitor, so I'll be curious how your body responded to it. That's why we use at least you mentioned it. I do too. I use liquid IV, which has got more sugar in it, but I use. I use element in the morning and the evening when I'm really in the thick of heat, and then I'll use liquid IV right after one of my workouts because my body needs that sugar.

Speaker 1: 39:35

I do the same.

Speaker 2: 39:35

Did you? Did you have your constant glucose monitor when you, when you used that? How did it react? That way, so in a healthy amount, though did that sugar spike it too much?

Speaker 1: 39:44

No, no, no, it was, it was, it was not, it was not a big spike.

Speaker 2: 39:46

Should be wide open for the glucose to go in.

Speaker 1: 39:48

That's exactly right. So if you look at your workout the next, the first 69 minutes, you know after you're you've used up all your glucose. You need to replenish that. So if you're using.

Speaker 1: 40:00

Seeking it in that moment Exactly, and then those channels are wide open. So if you're using liquid IV, I found it more effective to use it directly after workout, because your body absorbs that glucose immediately along with electrolytes and during the day you don't need that sugar and I use, I use the element. You can use whatever you can scratch. There's a lot of, there's a lot of options out there, but you don't need just water, you need an electrolyte as well so.

Speaker 1: 40:27

So other training recommendations so you can expect to do your your quality work during the heat, most of the time.

Speaker 1: 40:38

Right, so I'm guilty, I do most of my my training super early in the morning. Right, so I do my. My quality sessions, my, my race specific. You know you know pace and power sessions in the coolest part of the day and and then the hand and that I'm hoping to train my body what my pace feels like. Right, you can. You can have your heat sessions that we talked about. You should do specific heat sessions, but those cannot be your quality sessions. If they do, you're trying to do quality in the heat. Your. The recovery it's going to take is going to be tremendous In your heat preparation.

Speaker 2: 41:18

How many days a week are you doing a heat session?

Speaker 1: 41:20

So two to three days it did something. Yeah, and that may be running in the heat, it may be sauna, Right, yeah, but I found that I can't do my, my, my quality sessions without being shelled for three or four days, yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 1: 41:40

So. So use a cooler part of the day to do your, do your to your quality stuff. You need to have heat, heat, heat, heat, heat, heat sessions for that, climate climatization. And you have to understand, when you are training, you have to understand that evaporation is the key element, right? So if your skin's covered, your head's covered, you're not evaporating very well. And I went down a little bit of a bit of a bit of a you know, a rabbit hole here, and so what you put on your head, so important, so the trucker's caps, if you like, if you, if you, if you like, wearing a trucker's cap during the race, that's good, but that's going to impede evaporation from your head. If you use that trucker's cap, put, put ice in. That can be very effective as long as that ice sits there and it kind of drains over to the next, next, next, next, rest, stop.

Speaker 1: 42:34

You know most of the most of the papers, this is not science-based. This is, this is, this is level four evidence or recommend an open visor or a headband. Now, we all know that some guys, like our dear friend Justin, wears a headband because it makes him look like a rock star and he's just a beautiful human. He does it for the ladies, he does it. He does it because he looks darn good, but we didn't know he was. He was, he was, he was following the science and his head, his head is wide open and his his evaporator. He's maximizing his evaporation while being a rock star. So kudos to him. But if you're wearing wearing a trucker's hat or you're wearing a running cap that doesn't allow evaporation from the head, you're that's a problem.

Speaker 2: 43:24

Yeah, yeah, you bring a really good point. It depends on on the race and what's available. In really really hot races we wear visors and that way we can breathe. But if you're going into an extreme hot race and you know you have the luxury of having ice at aid stations, then you wear hats. That way you can keep the top of the hat will keep the ice on your head, so it sort of depends on it. So there's there's. I wear a visor almost everything, except for super hot races with great aid stations, and I know I can use that hat to keep eyes on it. I had to keep icing.

Speaker 1: 43:56

So and that also goes along with what you're wearing More exposed skin the better. Yeah, we know that shaved skin evaporates better than the hairy skin, so that's another reason to shave your legs. There are three papers out there that talk about sunscreen.

Speaker 2: 44:15

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:15

Does sunscreen prevent? Prevent evaporation of the skin? Absolutely not. So. There's three papers that suggest that the sunscreen actually keeps your skin cooler. One it helps a helps decrease the radiant exposure of the skin too, and it can prevent skin cancer, which is the most important thing. Yeah, so, so, so don't think you know you. You know you. Slathering on sunscreen is going to prevent your skin from evaporating. It is crucial.

Speaker 2: 44:45

I got a funny story about that, because I've put lotion on and even sunscreen before and just the the anodicone that doesn't is my arms pull up with all the lotion and people are like, what are you? What happened to you? Like, well, my pores are spitting out all the all the junk that was in there. So, uh, yeah, didn't impede it at all.

Speaker 1: 45:04

So those are our suggestions for training in the heat. One be realistic. Two do your quality stuff in the cooler part of the day. Do some heat sessions to get used to it, and then you, you got to understand that evaporation is what distinguishes humans from being humans. Now on to racing. These will be very similar. You got to be realistic. So your ability to race on a hot day is going to be very, very, very different than your ability to race on a cooler day.

Speaker 2: 45:42

It is not a PR day, right? I know you planned on racing at a certain power, certain pace. That does not apply to that. I mean, you can do it. You are not going to have a good day.

Speaker 1: 45:53

It's going to get ugly for you, so be realistic Heart rate does not lie, no, so if it's a hot day and you're running a 30 second per mile less than you think you should and your heart rate is the root, you should have listened to us. Yes, back your pace off. And you got to back and guess what? The entire field is feeling the same thing you are when you're racing. So you and I have both done races where you can see it in people. You can see it on hot days. People are suffering, yeah, and if you can keep keep moving at a decent, even slower pace, you will run through the field because people will explode in the heat.

Speaker 2: 46:36

Absolutely. It's amazing. What did you say on a previous podcast? You're not special. You're not special, you're a human being. You're not special, it's hot. Nobody's running a PR. That's crazy. Look around you.

Speaker 1: 46:50

People are dying. You're not special and so you got to be realistic at the times you're trying to run. And another key point is success in the race is less about once you get your core temperature up. How to get it down is keeping your core down. Yeah Well, once your core temperature goes above 103, your day is over Over. So that your success with racing in the heat all day, whether it's a 10K, whether it's a half, whether it's a full, the success all day is the constant effort keeping your core temperature between 98 and 103. So you got to be active. So, because if you start trying to trying to salvage and get your core down, that's over.

Speaker 2: 47:38

It's over.

Speaker 1: 47:40

So several other other important points. You know there's some good evidence out there that pre-race cooling the lowest your core temperature can have a dramatic effect over the life of an event. So pros use cooling vests. Yeah, pros stay in the AC Now, stay in the AC before their event. We ain't pros. The other suggestion is take an ice cold water, drink in it before the start so that cooling your core down from the inside out can have a dramatic effect of pre-race cooling.

Speaker 2: 48:23

And they've shown with slushies. Slushies are really so chopped up ice and chewing on it.

Speaker 1: 48:29

Yeah, it can have a dramatic effect. So. So, pre-race cooling can have a dramatic effect. You have to hydrate with electrolytes and you have to pre-hydrate during the week. If you've had a super busy week and you've you've been on caffeine all week trying to get stuff done and you haven't hydrated, you have affected your race day performance, right. So pre-hydration during the week, overloading with electrolytes, even if it means your race weight's going up, is important, right. So your hydration, electrolytes and and pre-hydrate during the week are key.

Speaker 1: 49:05

Now, how in the world do you stay cool while you're racing? We all have things we do. One of my favorite tricks Conrad Stoltz taught us was put ice in your hands. So if you can go by an aid station and you can put ice in your hat we talked about you know you're wearing a trucker's hat because it's a miserable hot day, if you can, if you're wearing a suit, you can put it in your suit. You can put in your shorts. The thing that I've found most effective is hold it in your hands. Yeah, so, so. So get ice and use it. It's key.

Speaker 2: 49:37

Yeah, I would tack on one more thing to that I learned I got from you after a learn from Conrad and then from the research of of in your mouth and the slushie is when it's in your hand. Also get a couple pieces in your mouth and chew on it. Don't just don't just hold it in there, but chew on it to get the ice, the ice kind of chunked up to be more slushie like and those receptors in your mouth plus, if it's in your hands, starts to burn a little bit. So throw it in your mouth, keep it in your hands, a little bit more in your mouth. That's been a really nice little add-on.

Speaker 1: 50:04

So, so just use ice. And you have to think about again, you have to think about keeping your core cool while you're racing. It's a constant effort because, again, if you go above that 103 mark, you're host Game over, game over. So ice to hands, ice in your shirt, ice in shorts the material you wear when you race is key. I mean, a lot of us have gone to suits with sleeves, one that protects your skin from the dreaded sunburn. But it does evaporate very, very well and the and it can be cooling. We know that convection works, meaning water on your face, water on your shorts, water everywhere, water, water going across your skin can cool you down. There's some, there's some data out there that says one cup of water in your mouth, one cup of water over your head, can be very effective.

Speaker 2: 50:59

A huge thing we tell athletes all the time is stay wet, stay wet Every aid station on your bike, and it may not be hot yet do it every aid station. Start to. To Dr Herring's point, don't waver to get hot, get in front of it, because as your core temperature starts to go up, there's no going backwards. You're you're just at damage control. So stay wet, stay wet, stay wet, stay wet, stay wet, do it early.

Speaker 1: 51:23

And I don't know if you guys have tried or not, but in in Kona, I think in 15, I tried some of those sleeves. I got a funny story about that. But yeah, finish with that one. Those cooling sleeves. Yeah, and the only way those sleeves work if they stay wet.

Speaker 2: 51:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:39

And in the Kona heat with the dry air that they would stay wet for about one minute and then they would get dry. Did you wear? Them the whole time. I wore them for a while. Then, on the way back, I I rolled them down on my wrist because they got hot. Yeah, yeah, because I couldn't keep them wet the whole time.

Speaker 2: 51:57

Yeah. So you went, you went in whatever year you went, you gave me there's this funny story about this you gave me those sleeves and I think you kind of told me like hey, they worked really well but they sort of petered out, but keep them wet and they'll be really good. And I put them on and I kept them wet, so in the beginning they were still wet. Within five miles I threw them into the lava rocks.

Speaker 1: 52:16

I'll be like I'll buy a new pair because it gave me a claustrophobic feel Like.

Speaker 2: 52:20

for me I couldn't evaporate even when it was on, so it didn't work and I was just like I felt suffocated by them. So I threw it. So they worked for some people.

Speaker 1: 52:28

Yep.

Speaker 2: 52:28

But who man?

Speaker 1: 52:30

I hated those things. Don't cover your skin, yeah. So keys to racing be realistic. Keep your, keep your core temperature down the entire race because again, if you go, you go above 103, just for that day's over, you got to pre-hydrate. You got to hydrate while you're racing with whatever fluid you like. Ice to hand short, short, you know short. Stay as cool as you can be and water can increase your you know your convection. So just stay wet, stay wet. So last point is what happens when it goes too far? So you've not done a good, done a good job, or you're are you racing in extreme conditions? We've all been there, we've all been there and this is serious. You have to listen to this and you can't be to be cavalier.

Speaker 1: 53:21

One stage one is really heat cramps. We've all had them. We've all been to races. We've seen people on the on this, on the side of the road, cramping, cramping, cramping. That can be from fitness, that can be from electrolytes, that can be from heat, Right. So you have passive pointer muscles are activating and you have heat cramps. Treatment for that is stretch, walk ice. So sometimes you can get out of it, sometimes you can't. But heat cramps is kind of the first stage, saying things are going to arrive, okay.

Speaker 1: 53:55

The second step is heat exhaustion. And what that means is you're, you're, you have those muscle cramps, but your skin is getting pale and almost cold. Right, you're getting chills, you know, even though you think, my God, it's hot out. Well, you know. Well, you know why do I have goosebumps, right? So that's that's the beginning of of of heat exhaustion. And but with that you usually have a fever over 104, but your core temperature can be up to 102, 103, not above nausea, vomiting, you know, headache, fatigue.

Speaker 1: 54:38

But the key to this heat exhaustion, it's, it's a precursor of bad stuff to come. So if you're out there and you're, you're racing, and you're all in that, and you start getting getting goosebumps and you're, you're feeling cold and you're getting heat cramps, that's the beginning of heat exhaustion. Be aware, be just know, if you keep pushing, bad things are coming. So that's heat exhaustion. The final step if you've been a knucklehead and you've had, you've had cramps, but this is your day, you're going to push through. You know, your skin is, you've had some goosebumps, but you're, you're racing, this is your day, you're going to push through. The next step is heat stroke. So so you've gone from having having having goosebumps and feeling feeling cold to now you have warm, dry, red skin right and when you get in that medical tent because you've passed out and they stick that thermometer in your rectum, your temperature is now going to be 104. That can be deadly. Your heart rate is through the roof and and again nausea, vomiting, headache or symptoms. But you're past all that.

Speaker 2: 55:56

And just to make this point when you get, if you aren't listening to your body and you're going beyond that, this isn't a discomfort problem, this is a life-threatening problem.

Speaker 1: 56:05

Your your organs are starting to shut down, seizures are possible. So if you don't listen to your body when you get to stage one, or heat, heat cramps we've all done that If you start getting that, that chilled, chilled feeling, shut, shut things down, just there's another day, there's a cooler event, and it's just. It may not be your day, because if you get to that point where you stop sweating and your your core temperature is now above 104 and your heart is through the roof, you got some bad stuff stuff coming. So so be where bad things can happen.

Speaker 2: 56:45

Don't play around I mean seriously as we go over these. It's nothing to play around with. I think you could probably reflect on some times that you maybe you've been on the border of what you should be doing and we'll share some stories of like yeah, of that happening.

Speaker 1: 57:00

So you know, I think the key is, if you get into that heat at stage two heat exhaustion stage you got to start cooling down, you got to shut down your effort, you got to find ice, you got to find air conditioning, you got to change your environment and reality is like you don't only have to consciously do that.

Speaker 2: 57:23

Subconsciously your body shut down already. So you are doing a wobble run walk. You are like, oh no, quitter, I'm gonna power through this. And you go to run and you'll find that your body is stopping you.

Speaker 2: 57:33

But you're pushing through and it's that sort of beagle mentality that we've been through before, where there's very clear signs and evidence that you can't do what you want to do, but you're forcing it because your ego is getting in the way and you're missing the signs and symptoms that are ultimately going to become life-threatening. And so you know it's already not going to be your day. So it's not even that you're pushing, it's that you have the lack of the ability to do so. And then you're you're pushing beyond your own means and there's signs and symptoms that are getting very serious. Know what these are, because you know you have an obligation to the people that you love to get back and to say if you're doing this for fun, right, right, you're not. You're not a quitter, you're not being weak, you're being an idiot. And we wouldn't even put this under lessons from knuckleheads, because at this point, now you're, now you're just doing yourself harm.

Speaker 1: 58:22

And if you get to that heat stroke, stroke point, this is not a situation where your buddies pack you in ice and say, woof, you had a hard day. You called 911. Yeah, because, if you could, because if you're in that you know pale non-sweating skin and you're nauseous and you're, you know, having seizure, you pass out even you get emergent help, because that is life-threatening it really is.

Speaker 2: 58:48

I'll share a story, if that's okay, of Iron man Coeur d'Alene. It was I think it was in 2021, when they had. You know, part of the reason we signed it for Coeur d'Alene is because it's cool, it's nice, the water's freezing, it's in the northwest, but they had some crazy, crazy, crazy heat wave of 108 to 112 and that ambient temperature, all the heat index and everything like that and the ambient temperature you're looking at something at good climbs to 120 to 130 and you know all the hydration did everything paste smart, even super conservative, and I got out on the run and I had I even had an ice pack and T2, so I had it around my neck and I had a lot of strategies to stay cool and I did all the strategies that we talked about and even started off slowly and you know, within five, six miles, my Scottish butt could already start to tell that, like you know, it's early into it and I started to make some modifications and pacing and a run walk protocol and even change that down a little bit more. And and just to make a long story short it kept getting worse. It kept getting worse to where, by mile 13-14, I was getting dizzy and it went from being hot and overheated to and sweating profusely to barely sweating and and having tunnel vision and being dizzy as crap and inability to run inability I would run and it was just like why is it not there? And I've been in some situations like that before. I know my body really well and I could tell I was teetering on the, you know, flirting with heat stroke. It was not heat stroke, but you know that, like you can be an idiot, you push into it and at mile 15 that was it right. I pulled the plug and it's changed.

Speaker 2: 1:00:26

I think the old me when I was 20s and 30s and pre-kids would have pushed through that right. At what cost. It wouldn't have been a. It wouldn't have been a good day. I would have pushed beyond it. Maybe I got there safely, maybe I. Maybe honestly I didn't. And as you get older your body has a harder time with these stressful positions too. So as you get older it doesn't get easier. Your body is more susceptible. But in my mind I had an obligation to get back to my family. It wasn't a comfort thing, it wasn't a, you know, mental power thing and it wasn't like a DNF. I mean it's a DNF and our egos get in the way of like it's a DNF, which, which we think is, is quitting, or you know, I've met people that, have you know, held themselves so proudly of like I've never DNF'd and I never would, and be like. Well, dude, you stretch your limits, get yourself to a bad place and maybe you change your mind.

Speaker 2: 1:01:12

Yeah, probably aren't fitting your goals high enough yeah, yeah, and honestly, it came to that point to where I know the signs and symptoms. Why? Because you know we do this in our profession, but you also need to know this as an athlete. That's putting yourself on the edge of your ability to know when to call it so you can live to fight another day. You'll live to fight another day, but if you don't, your ego will write a check that your body can't cash and you will literally die like I mean. I don't mean to be dramatic, but you will literally take a healthy body and you will bring it to its end and you know the people around you and what for what. Because your ego got in the way and you know now your family doesn't have you to come back to. So I share that with you because that was. It's a hard decision, right, it's a really hard decision.

Speaker 1: 1:01:58

You spent months building. This month all your family is there. You spent money getting there, but it's that that prize is not worth.

Speaker 2: 1:02:06

It's not worth it and it came back to our decision tree.

Speaker 2: 1:02:09

Right that family of work you have play of training and you know family is there supporting you in the days focuses on number three and everybody's in. But number three was starting to affect the ability to, to, to make sure that I can get back to number one or number two. So that comes from you know. That comes from somebody who's raced a lot and who was prepared. We knew, going into that race like we weren't prepared, I didn't do any he acclimatization that race, never even thought the court of lane would be like that, but went in having experience in racing in hot conditions and doing even though in could I look back and maybe change some things? Yes, but I still look at and say honestly, I think I did all the right things. I did all the right things and still the right outcome didn't come out. So you can still do the right things, but I can't emphasize enough and as dr Haring gives a beautiful outline of training and racing in the heat about making sure that you know you put your long-term health first and foremost. You put your family and being there number one and personally that was a really hard decision, one that I'm truly proud of.

Speaker 2: 1:03:15

And then the highlight for me was you know, justin, my buddy Justin, was out there and he was racing and it gave me a chance to cheer him on and boy, did it make my day to see him. You know, back on lap three hadn't in. You can tell he was boy, he was slogging but so was everybody else and if you talk to him early on he's like it was. He was going Justin's exceptionally fast and he was going remarkably slow considering what he could do, but he had enough discipline and his in his brain, if I remember correctly, was all the other fools are gonna fall apart, right, because he was, he came off it. We both came off a T2, way away from number our normal position like power, yeah, yeah and so what do you?

Speaker 2: 1:03:56

what do you think? You think, okay, I'm gonna push, I gotta go catch these guys. And, to his credit, and I was doing the same thing, I just my Scottish ass imploded, but and there he was on the third lap like just grinding home and just you, I think he must have passed hundreds of people in the third lap because he was smart. So, so do things right and you will, you will, you will benefit from it on the back end. And if you don't know the signs and symptoms, so you know, you know when to pull the plug, because it's no joke exactly. So if we're gonna look back and summarize, you know, I think that I think you did that beautifully, man. I think there's there's so many different tangents we can go on and little subsectors of this. To keep it simple, what are some of the? What are the? Some of the key, simple takeaways.

Speaker 1: 1:04:40

I think we've resummarize yeah, I think you know. The first part was you have to define what he is, and that's truly temperature, humidity, a combination of those two matters, and you know what I think you brought up.

Speaker 2: 1:04:53

I would really point out that, like, really, look at the dew point, that's something I really haven't done that's a remarkable, markable number to look at and that's 65 and above 65 it starts to get moderate and everything above and then 75 over is is like red flag sort of thing, right, but just look at dew point and look at like 65 start to pay attention to and see how you perform.

Speaker 1: 1:05:13

But yeah, I guess, and we'll include the heat index stuff on the blog that goes along with this. Yeah but, you know, you know. So it's a really the temperature, humidity, dew point matter. The key is evaporation. That's the most important way the human body adapts to the heat. And if you can think about evaporation, if you can, if you can, you can maximize evaporation. That's gonna be key and understand.

Speaker 2: 1:05:42

That's water and that's why hydration is essential with electrolytes. And the more you evaporate, the more water you lose, and it's in out. And as soon as you get down below two percent you're starting to have problems. You get the five, six, seven. That's when your body shuts down and so a lot of heat? Is the? Is the heat did it to you, but it's a dehydration issue. That should have been days going into it, let alone then a new, a hydration strategy that's been tested.

Speaker 1: 1:06:09

Yeah, on race day and so there are effective training methods. Right, train the heat, do your quality sessions not in the heat and and have heat adaptation sessions. Those heat adaptation sessions can be said steady state stuff in the heat, or you can use sauna. I'm you know, I'm the past. If you saw it two, three times a week lead leading up to a hotter race 10 to 12 minutes after a run or a ride, or both. Is it effective? I think so.

Speaker 2: 1:06:44

I'm not sure I found that it I think it is, but again you'll see some different protocols. We're not gonna give you anything specific. What's worked for us. You know some that resonate with me when somebody just said, hey, you get in the sauna and you stay in there until it's not till it's so unbearable, but it's pretty darn uncomfortable.

Speaker 2: 1:06:59

You got to get out and whether that's 10 minutes or 20 minutes, but it's not more, is necessarily better. And to do it judiciously, to make sure that you're not overcooking yourself and realize that there and if you pay attention to I'm, I'm like, cognitively, I'm an idiot. For you a short duration after that, but you're pretty beat up. So understand that, like, like Dr Herring said, it's a zone two or a low, low zone two or not. A hard session to get hot and then make sure that you account for that water loss, make sure that you get the fluid back in, because if you're dehydrated as you learn to sweat more efficiently, it you can be acclimated, but as soon as you lose out that body weight, you're in trouble, you're in big trouble then effective raising.

Speaker 1: 1:07:41

I think the I think the most important point I hope you'll take away from this is you have to control your core temperature all day and early preload with your slushy. So, if you can, if you can get your core temperature down before the race starts, point one. But the most important point is is keeping your core temperature down during the day. You got to work every single step on keeping that, that core temperature down because, again, once it goes over, game over.

Speaker 2: 1:08:11

Dude. So acclimate and one little piece, uh, maybe a tip from us is like the week race week, stop with all the heat. At that point, stop with all the heat. So you're doing it all the way up to it. Make sure you acclimate, make sure you know even what heat and what all these things mean. Make sure you're hydrated. That's the week going into it and not only week going into it. But then your race day. Make sure that you keep your core temperature down, stay wet, know your trigger points for good cooling places your hands, your mouth, your neck, um, make sure that you have the ability to evaporate and then also account for that loss to make sure you get. The longer the race, the more you evaporate, uh, the more that you're risking bigger levels of dehydration.

Speaker 1: 1:08:53

Yep, exactly. And then the final point is know the warning signs? Yeah Right, and we talked about the three stages heat cramps, first. Heat exosciences, next that. That that's when you're pale and cold, right, and he, he stroke. Is you've, you've gone past that chill and now you stop sweating. That's an indication that your core temperature is above 104. Get some help.

Speaker 2: 1:09:21

Yeah, dude, that's, and honestly that's what started to trigger me. If there's one thing to take away from, is when you're really hot and you get those goosebumps as soon as you start to see that you're not sweating anymore. That is a I mean, even when I say you're not sweating, you're. You're not in heat stroke yet, probably because you're about to pass out. You're pretty darn close to it. So if you start to see that your skin gets dry despite being extremely hot, hit the kill switch. Your body is not cooling down, it's got no more fluid, it can't do it. It needs to. You have run out of fluid and their body perceives that it doesn't have any more fluid to evaporate to keep itself alive and you are teetering on a life-threatening situation, exactly. So know what they are. But one takeaway, man, is if you're hot and you're not sweating, you've got. You don't have much longer before you're in the med tent and you'll be lucky if you come out of that med tent.

Speaker 1: 1:10:14

So enjoy this life, but be smart, yep. Make good decisions.

Speaker 2: 1:10:19

Don't be a beagle Right. Remember those beagles, Remember those beagles got lost. It's a horrible story, but it reminds me. We're all beagles, man.

Speaker 2: 1:10:26

Those, those, those animals are on the scent and they will not let the scent go, despite being hot. And they ran themselves into a heat stroke. And when I learned about that I looked at my good buddy, dr Harry was like dude, we are beagles, we are absolutely beagles. I do not want to run myself in because and I'm like I think we've actually been in situations before where we were probably teetering on that and as we get older and smarter, we realize that that's not a brilliant move. So listen and learn from our previous mistakes and live, dude. Live to fight another day. You will be better for it, I promise.

Speaker 1: 1:11:07

Lessons from the knuckleheads. All right, it's going to be a little bit different. Lessons from knuckleheads. These last 10 days have been very difficult for my family. It's made me think a lot about legacy, and what does legacy mean? And legacy means is what other people have learned or see from your life and a morbid way to think about it. But one one position that I've been put in the last 10 days is what would your kids say if you unfortunately passed, if they were looking at what you meant to them? That's your legacy. What did you leave for them? What did you leave for your friends?

Speaker 1: 1:11:58

So I've had to write a eulogy, I've had to write some stuff for Libby's dad, and my word of the week has been legacy. It's what you want others to see in you, or remember you from Right. And again, what would your kids say? So, in my mind, everything you do matters the way you live, the way you work, the way you train and race. So what do your kids see every day? What does your wife see every day? What are your friends see every day? Everything you do matters.

Speaker 1: 1:12:38

And we at Hub, you know we love racing and training. Okay, but if you're racing and training to the detriment of your family. That's terrible, right? If you're doing your long, you know your long rides and I tell my buddies to have young kids. If you're racing and training and you're missing out on your kids, that's not a great legacy. You may win Iron man, you may be the greatest athlete out there, but your kids aren't going to remember that, right? So when you think about it, what are your if you're a young kid? What are your if you're enforcing the past? What are your kids going to say?

Speaker 1: 1:13:22

So here at Hub, our, our, our way we make decisions is family first. So if you leave a legacy and your kids say, yeah, he was always family first, that's a win. In my book, work is second and training and racing and third. We are all guilty and we've all been in situations where we're training and racing and fighting first, right, that's not important, right?

Speaker 1: 1:13:51

So when you look at legacy, you got to, got to think about what your kids seeing you so, in my opinion, less than some knuckleheads is. You got to be a great husband, you got to be a great dad and you got to be a great friend every day. Not all of us are great, you know, every single day. But if you can add, you can, you can, you can average out and you're doing a great job and you, you see yourself through your kids and you think they, they see, see me as a kind of compassion human being. That's a great thing, yeah. So if we can live with compassion and if we can set goals and we can be that hero for others, we're going to leave an incredible legacy.

Speaker 2: 1:14:38

Yeah, I mean, you said something there which I think is powerful. Powerful isn't, isn't what you say. You said it's what your children see, so it's what they see. It's one thing to say. It's one say say, ah, family first, I do family first, but what do they see? What do they see when push comes to shove?

Speaker 1: 1:14:56

Do they?

Speaker 2: 1:14:57

see you being and prioritizing them. It can be as simple as like prioritizing them over your training, or like put your phone down right, sometimes like you look around and I got to catch myself. I mean, I'm not, I'm not preaching from a, I'm casting stones from a glass house. I'm aware that every once in a while I'll notice that you know, my girls are talking to me and I'm on my phone and I'm catching up with something and I've made it more of a structure around to just put the phone face down and be like no, I'm here.

Speaker 1: 1:15:21

Be, present.

Speaker 2: 1:15:22

So it's what they see, right, what they see. And we, I've got a biased opinion, obviously. I mean it's, it's the core values of us, of what we really think of for hub, and the way you and I really lead our life. But I can't help but think those that don't, and we see them. I mean you see it and I I feel bad for them because I can't help but think, when they get older and the and the house is quiet, that they don't look back with regret and look back and go man, what did I miss? You missed out, you missed out. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:15:50

So, um, as we leave a legacy, I mean it's, it's not even like sacrifice, it's, it's selfish. It's selfish because you're going to be better for it, but, like what your children see, how do you leave a legacy? Your, your father, passed away and we were talking about this and he's going to have service at a beautiful church that's going to need outdoor seating. I mean this guy left a legacy. He impacted so many lives because he was present, he was engaged and he lived, he walked the walk, um, and yeah, no, I mean it's. It's times like this that you know, you say it may feel morbid, but reality is. It gives us all reality check of what are we doing right now, right, right, what are we doing right now? And it's a wonderful gift that you know he gives us to take a pause and go what he inspires me every day to, to to move the ball forward for what he, what he has done in life.

Speaker 1: 1:16:43

So so the word of the week is legacy. I would, I would encourage you in your, in your quiet time, to really think about what your kids would say about you.

Speaker 2: 1:16:53

Yeah, that's man, that's. Sit down and really think about that. There's a poem, did you ever? It made me think about that. I haven't thought about it for a while.

Speaker 2: 1:17:00

My, my good buddy, tom, references this a decent amount Dash. Do you ever hear the poem dash? Maybe we should put up I'm not sure if we're allowed to do that and show notes or how that works, but I'll mess it up. Essentially, look up the poem dash, and what it really comes down to is that we all were born that's our year and our date and then we die, and that's our year and our date. That dash is everything in between, right, and it really comes to live your dash. Right, the two moments that are like etched in time, when it started, when it ended, and, unfortunately, the only thing, all the everything in between, is the dash that is nothing more than a dash when you pass away. But what is that dash? Live your dash. Don't take that for granted, because we will all have a beginning and an end written on that stone, right? And so what's the dash that we leave a behind? What's the legacy that we leave behind? What's the mark and moves, man, it's going to.

Speaker 2: 1:17:59

As Jim Morrison said, no one here gets out alive Right. And when I pass away, not only do I hope my children say wonderful things. I think people come and celebrate and they share stories and I hope they're sad. I hope they're incredibly sad because you made a mark in a positive way that made their lives better, that impacted them. So as we head to that and you get up and give the eulogy to honor an incredible man, you know we're just lucky to be here.

Speaker 2: 1:18:33

Don't take that for granted. What are your kids going to say? How do you leave a mark? What is your legacy? And as a friend, you're doing that now. You and talking about all the time. You lead by example and look at what your kids are doing now and so, yeah, reflect on that and what would your kids say about you? That's one of the lessons from Knuckleheads at a sincere time right now. I think that's. I think that's beautiful, but but yeah, look up the dad. You'll have to look that up. Look it up Powerful. You know what I think of that show. I think that was a hot show.

Speaker 1: 1:19:08

It's a great show. A little bit of heat at the beginning, a little bit of heat at the end.

Speaker 2: 1:19:12

We're in fuego, we're on fire. So yeah, no, that's good, dude. Ah man, I've had some horrible experiences, have you? I mean, I know the answer to that Absolutely and you can do everything right and it could still go south.

Speaker 1: 1:19:28

But but, yeah, no, that was a hot show. Yeah, it was a hot show. Thank goodness for medical tents.

Speaker 2: 1:19:32

Yes, you know. Last thing, the hub. I'm not sure those of you know we are doing an open house. If you're here in the Richmond area, hub Training Center is going to be doing an open house with Richmond Tri-Club. We are super excited about that. It's from 5 to 8 pm August 10th, this Thursday, so anybody can stop by. But we've got some registration. We've got a lot of little sample small group classes. We've got some instructional classes going.

Speaker 2: 1:19:57

We also have a special promotion that we have not announced yet. So if you listen to this podcast you might be the first to hear about it. But anybody who comes, we're going to be offering unlimited access to our small group training for one month. So on our Hub Training Center app, you can download it and we will give you the coupon code or the, the whatever code you want to call it. That will give you access and that is a significant thing to give away. I think we've got small group classes three days, three times a day, five days a week, and we do one-on-one string training, we do our metabolic testing. We'll have some promos and things like that out here, but we are super excited and if you come you will get a really cool gift from us a complimentary one month access to all our small group training. So what else, man? You got a, you got a.

Speaker 2: 1:20:54

You got a big week coming up and so we'll support you with that and we will have our open house. We'll have some interviews here too. So I think our podcast next week will be some interviews. We'll have some of our coaches, we'll have some of our trainers, some of our docs with it, with active, and then I'm going to try to get Chad on the show and I think maybe and hear from a first time Ironman athlete and so, yeah, lots of cool things.

Speaker 1: 1:21:19

Good things coming. Good things coming here at Hub.

Speaker 2: 1:21:21

Yeah, so they got wraps up for anything else from you.

Speaker 1: 1:21:25

Nothing no Good, good, solid show.

Speaker 2: 1:21:27

Yeah, man, as they always say when you come to a fork in the road go uphill.