Does Summer Running Really Make You Faster in the Fall?

0:00How many times have you heard that summer running makes you faster in the fall? I can guarantee I've said it to athletes. So today we're going to dive into what does the science say about that? Or is this really just a lot of mental talk to get us through the summer? Welcome to Tread lightly, the podcast where we bring you easily digestible data driven insights. We're all about making training accessible, inclusive and fun, whether you're new or aiming to level up. I'm cohost Laura of Laura Norris running. I have my masters of applied exercise science and I've been coaching since 2015. I've worked with hundreds of runners from first racist podium finishes. And I'm your cohost Amanda Brooks of run to the finish since 2012. I've written thousands of running articles and worked with as many runners through both one on one and group programs. So runners start your watches and let's go. Welcome back runners to another episode of Tread lightly. Today we're going to deep dive into understanding how summer running impacts those fall races.

1:03And this has been a super common question because so many of you right now are deep into the heat of summer. Yes, and so we're going to talk about how long those heat acclamation adaptations stick around and what may help you perform well in a fall race as what. Might actually work against performance in a fall race and also why sometimes fall races are faster than spring ones. So first though, if you have not listened to our episode on heat acclamation, you're going to want to scroll back a couple months. We did this early summer and that's where we take a deep dive into the physiology, but just as a quick overview to remember what we're really thinking about here as you train in the heat. You have increased plasma volume, which means more blood, which can increase your cardiac output. You have improved sweat response. You aren't losing as much fluids in the heat and that is helpful for not falling apart at the end of long races. You do tend to perform better in cooler temps and several weeks of heat exposure can actually improve your hemoglobin mass, which is almost similar to the effects that you would get in altitude training.

2:15Which then if you come down to sea level, you see a boost hemoglobin carries red oxygen. So there's this theory that that hemoglobin mass gives you a similar boost in cool temperatures. So what we're trying to look at here is alright, I've done that heat acclamation because I have done the summer training does all that science and what's happening in my body is that why I'm actually going to have a faster or a better fall marathon. And the truth of that is maybe it may not be so much the heat as maybe it's the consistency. But certainly there are benefits from all of those little things coming together. Yes, in a research when we look at something we tend to look at confounding variables if we're unable to isolate a variable and you can't perfectly isolate. I trained in the heat and I raced in the cold because there are so many other things going around.

3:17And I think sometimes about how like you said with consistency, I feel like it's easier to be consistent in summer because ultimately it's still as easy to get out early in the heat and do your hard work out then to try to do it around snow and ice as you might encounter in winter. If you're a working parent and you aren't with the school schedule that might feel a little easier depending on your situation. There's more daylight which I have seen so many runners feel more inclined to train more in the summer when they can run super early before summer camp drop off and work versus in the winter when it's dark and cold. That alone I think impacts consistency so we have that confounding variable consistency. Like you said and then we also have the usual pattern that is starting to fall apart is that fall races will be in temperatures more conducive to optimal performance as spring races. You know Boston even for the past several years can be abnormally hot.

4:21I think one of the pieces that often comes together for me is almost this mental feeling that it's simply easier than what people did all summer long. So even if maybe it's not about the increased plasma volume it is that mental of like oh well 50 degrees suddenly like my heart rate isn't climbing so fast I just don't feel like I'm working as hard because my body isn't trying to additionally like send all the blood flow to my skin to try and dump out that heat. And so it is there 100% we can say there's benefits to racing in the cooler weather. But those benefits may not be specific to the fact that you trained through summer in terms of what's physiologically happening but I do think the mental component is really huge and like you said I think the fact that summer can make it easier to be consistent is part of why like fall racing fall.

5:27Marathon season that is a thing that is when the majority of marathons are and I do think those things are kind of what's playing together there. Yeah and also when we think about heat acclimation so as we talked about in our heat acclimation episode you begin to lose heat acclimation usually two or three weeks without exposure to it. And so for our runners who are doing indie or Philly or CIM those later fall races where they usually have at least a month of cooler weather to train in they still perform really well so it's not solely attributable to the hot weather and I think those runners actually do get some benefit too because their peak weeks get to be really high quality with good recovery since they aren't struggling to do 20 miles finishing at marathon pace in. 75 degrees totally agree so that then begs the question does summer running then actually potentially impair our fall goals so for a lot of folks who are doing you know early September races and that means the meat of their work has been at the highest temps at least here in the US.

6:46Are they getting less benefit because maybe they couldn't hit their target goal paces all the time or they just couldn't recover as well because all of their work had to be done in the higher temps. That's a really good question and that makes you think of all those like last chance to be few races that always take place in September where people go in with big goals and I think it really depends on what your goals are and how you approach your training if throughout the whole training cycle you have heat adjusted your paces or you focused on heart rate and effort to keep your training within the appropriate intensity zones accounting for the heat. And then you base your goal pace off of that training versus like an arbitrary goal time such as a BQ you can probably still run well because you've trained you haven't overtaxed your body and you have set realistic goal paces but let's say you are really set on that BQ time for your last chance BQ race and you force that pace through summer and you have that this run is so hard I recovered poorly stacked week after week and then all of a sudden you expect to run.

7:58Still 15 seconds from now faster on an equally warm day I think that can work against some people so I think those early September races essentially still need to be treated as a summer race not a fall cold weather race what do you think. Yeah I'd agree I'd say the other component for a lot of folks that I know you're talking with athletes about as well as I am is we can't count on these fall races being as cool anymore I mean the number of Chicago's that have been hot like so we're talking into October New York in November where we've had some hot like years. So I think that is where the benefit of your summer training can come into play is now you have spent all that time in the heat so you're less freaked out that race day is warmer than it was supposed to be but I do think that something people probably need to start looking at a little bit as they're considering where in fall they're picking that race and maybe starting to look at some that are a little bit later towards November.

9:11I agree with that like when talking with all my athletes who want to be cute I usually steer them towards Indy Philly C.I.M. because over the past five to 10 years where global warming has had more impact those races tend to stay cool. I think a lot of people think oh New York is far north it's going to be cool but we've seen them have hot weather that's why we're seeing people also rise in popularity for winter races of Houston Mesa your January February ones. Absolutely and I was just looking for I put together this chart a while back there was a company that did a study on race temperatures averages and which ones in the next decade were most likely to be like closer to optimal temps so let's see in the next 10 years 81% chance that Seattle will be at the end of the year. We'll be an optimal temp and then Boston Philly Jackson Hole Rocket City Jersey City.

10:19Yeah so interesting it's different ones then like we would have expected but that was looking at they did all kinds of climate control studies looking at like 221 races. Don't come to Seattle though unless you're really prepared to run on a lot of hills it's also going to rain on you that time of year in Seattle but it still goes to show like those aren't the popular races that people are defaulting to when they're like oh I'm going to train in summer and run super super fast at Chicago. Yeah it was that was an interesting study to kind of look at and I do think it again it does come down to thinking a little bit more about your summer training as beneficial because you are showing up consistently beneficial because it will make cooler temps feel easier. Because you've gotten used to how quickly you had cardiac drift so while you were doing your long runs and your heart rate kept getting higher and higher that'll slow down so all these components that mentally will feel easier will play into things but then it's finding the race to actually give you that cooler temp so that you're getting all of that.

11:34Yes and if you are listening to something like well I have to sign up for my marathon so early I'm signed up for a race that's possibly going to be warm you will be able to carry the heat acclamation if it does start to cool down where you live you might though want to implement protocols such as sauna or hot water immersion baths that we talked about in that episode to preserve your gains and the nice thing is is it doesn't take much to preserve heat acclamation so I'm just going to take where I live like let's say you are it's going to be warm. So I'm going to take a look at the first one in the Seattle area and you're training for Chicago and it cools down out or you're training for New York even and it's cold by October out here those athletes might really benefit well from passive heat exposure or some of those protocols such as layering up a bit more to preserve their heat acclamation for race and I think that's going to be a crucial part of fall racism season moving forward is thinking about heat acclamation just like we would if you're coming out of winter into the

12:34spring race again depending on your your climate because we both know some places can be really hot through October. Let's talk a little about VO2 max because I do feel like now that it's on people's watches it is a component it's a factor they're looking at so we know that in the summer there's the potential that that could help increase your VO2 max up to say maybe 5%. So the obvious idea is well then that means I'm going to race better but really what we're seeing around that is that maybe that's an improvement at like 5K and shorter but for that to translate to your marathon there's a lot of components that have to work together. There are like VO2 max is a performance determinant but is not the sole performance determinant especially when we're looking at the half marathon marathon we want to be looking at your lactate threshold maybe even specifically like your first and your second lactate threshold but essentially where do these sub VO2 max threshold sit.

13:40We want to be looking at your tea resistance durability whatever we want to call that how well do you hold on at the end or do you see this big decoupling from your threshold to your pace at that point we want to look at running economy and stuff and so you know you will see that VO2 max boost that might help you but it's not going to be this huge big boost that people think where they're like all my VO2 max improved by 5% so my goal marathon time. That's a little bit of a fallacy that is I understand why people get there but still it doesn't equate that way. A little bit of a tangent but let's talk about that because I have had a number of questions or people lately kind of asking I want to improve my VO2 max like they're really focused on that number and I tend to sort of steer the distance. I'm sort of steer them away from it to like just looking at our overall training rather than fixating on if that particular number is being increased.

14:50Yeah well I think it also I think that is a really good guidance to give and I think it's also worth discussing with the athletes how are we measuring VO2 max are we measuring it with a watch or are we measuring it in a lab because your watch can't actually measure your oxygen consumption rate. And it's just essentially like measuring your heart rate relative your pace and kind of going against general population charts to assess VO2 max and in summer your heart rate is higher or your watch might not even be reading heart rate accurately if it's on your wrist and it's getting all sweaty. And so you're going to see your VO2 max watch data actually go down at the start of summer and then go up at the end just because of how your heart rate is responding and so usually I discourage athletes from chasing that metric because that metric isn't very accurate and it's kind of noisy and if we chase that we might neglect preparing for what will actually help us run a strong fall marathon such as threshold work fatigue resistance.

15:54Marathon goal pace adequate volume true VO2 max work can be a little too intense for specific marathon or even half marathon training fall racing season is upon us so is your hydration and feeling strategy ready. Tail end offers combinations of carbs and sodium so you can meet all your nutrition and hydration needs whether you're training for a marathon half marathon or ultra. There endurance fuel provides you carbs and sodium in a moderate dose while their high carb fuel gives you a little bit more if you want most of your carbs to come straight from your bottle and these come in a variety of flavors from caffeinated raspberry to mango you so for the endurance fuel their high carb now comes in a variety of flavors including tart cherry or a naked flavor if you just don't want to overwhelm your palate during the race. And so if you're shopping to finalize your fall racing nutrition strategy head over to tailwind nutrition dot com slash tread lightly and use tread lightly 20 for 20% off your order and if you're not sure which flavors you want to try check out their bundles.

17:06Okay, so let's talk about these ideal race temperatures or what sort of considered optimal in terms of performance and it's funny because every time I share these people will argue with me pretty intensely about it but there's a number of studies that have looked at performance factors to sort of come up with these optimal temps based on finish times so. For recreational men and women it's around 43 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit six to seven degrees Celsius for elite men it's actually colder at 39 degrees Fahrenheit four degrees Celsius and for elite women 50 degrees Fahrenheit 10 degrees Celsius. That's interesting that's so different for elite men and women I wonder if there's something like the elite men tend to the they'll be taller than the elite women so they'll have more skin mass to have to try to cool usually taller people have less heat tolerance then short I don't know i'm just trying to understand or maybe it's yeah I wonder what it is maybe it's they're not as good at fat oxidation but that is interesting and yeah it's just because you might

18:22feel like you run your best at 25 degrees Fahrenheit or 65 degrees Fahrenheit doesn't negate what the data shows us across very large population pools run through statistical analysis and I've seen a lot of other research that can cause with those findings and I think part of what it is is 40 to 45 degrees is cool enough that you're not going to waste energy on trying to cool your body but it's also warm relative enough that you're not going to lose energy on trying to keep your muscle temperature up. agreed and there's interesting things that happen so when you're able to get to some of these more optimal temperatures. We mentioned that cardiac drift so your heart rate slowly creeping up that'll be slower simply because your heart rate isn't starting out higher because your body is already working so hard like you said. and then additionally like your central nervous system is always trying to protect you and when you are running and racing so putting in that hard effort in the heat.

19:30Your central nervous system more quickly wants to shut that down because it's trying to protect you so. Your brain everything is constantly sort of giving you these messages of like you need to slow down I don't know about this this is too hard i'm working too hard. And so some of that goes away so your mental space is freed up because your body isn't so quickly trying to protect you it doesn't think you're and danger because your heart rate hasn't hit 170 and like mile three. And then with that cardiac drift and nervous system stress you experience less sweat loss in cooler temperatures relative to hot temperatures even if you're heat acclimated you're still going to sweat less in the cooler temperatures. And that also keeps your heart rate from going too high as your blood volume is going to maintain better especially adequate fluid replacement. And it's also just easier to replace your fluids enough I work with many routers who lose.

20:32Several pounds over the course of a long run in the heat and the stomach does not have capacity to replace enough fluid where they will just no matter how well we approach things there will be some decoupling and effort drift near the end and so. Whether you're a heavy sweater or not you're going to see your improved durability near the end of a race, essentially, since you aren't just losing buckets of sweat. I think that gut component is another key piece to because particularly if you've been doing the gut training please go listen to that recent episode about how to do it so you have been. Practicing increasing your fuel and you've been doing that in the heat where it is harder like it's less appealing I had to take a couple of very hot gels recently on runs and it's it's so gross it's so gross. But also your stomach is just less interested in all of that so now all of a sudden you've been doing the work and then you get that cooler day it's much easier to take everything in and have a little bit less of that gut upset because you're not also battling the feelings of heat.

21:48Yeah, yeah that's a very good point like it's just so many things that stack up to just really improve performance and like on the flip side if things are too cold so let's say they're below freezing zero degrees Celsius 32 Fahrenheit. Your body doesn't deliver oxygen as efficiently to the muscles because you get vasoconstriction especially if you're like have skin exposed. So it takes a lot more work to keep those muscles warm you aren't getting oxygen as efficiently so even if you aren't losing tons of sweat in those conditions. Cold like colder and colder isn't always better for performance I think sometimes people will be like oh I ran great at this race that was 30 degrees you know like maybe 30 at the start but then got up to 45 you know it's a there's always the difference of start versus finished temperature. But I do think still though that you would have better performance in say 30 degrees Fahrenheit than 70 but it's just we can't expect quote unquote optimal performance in the cold for sure.

22:54So all right we're circling back to this question then. What is actually making you faster in the fall is it the physiology of what's happening in the summer is that playing a role at all is it just the consistency what do you think is the biggest component but also do you think the heat is playing a role. That's a really good question so you know we have over 40 determinants of performance and so it is hard to like ever distinctly isolate one but I think still I think what makes me say it's not just the heat is I work with some athletes who live in mild climate personally speaking whenever I when I ran both my marathon PRs it was fall in the Pacific Northwest because I trained like August through December for C.I. on both those years I didn't have around. I was in the heat and I'm still improved and performed well and I've seen the same for athletes so I genuinely think it's consistent training just a key million that my knowledge doing race specific workouts preparing yourself for the race and then race day being in an ideal zone because also certainly if you trained in the cool and then you went to a hot race you wouldn't see that same but what do you think based on your observations.

24:13So I agree that 100% you don't need the heat but I do think if you are able to train through the heat and then get to that optimal temperature it does help and I think a lot of that is it's both the physiological things that are happening simply because it's cooler so maybe not because you trained in the heat but simply because it's cooler. The mental side of that of how much different it feels I do think is huge because the marathon is so mental so from that side of things I think that's where that summer training can really pay off. What are some things and then athlete training for spring race could take from this and just looking at being like it's consistent training and is a little bit of heat exposure what could someone who's training for spring race do to kind of mimic this summer into a fast fall race phenomenon. So I think that heat acclimation episode and the things you talked about earlier with the sauna particularly if they're looking ahead and seeing like they're doing may or maybe they're doing like very beginning of June and so the potential there that it's quite a bit warmer and quite a bit warmer.

25:30Warmers may still not be hot but it may be quite a bit warmer than what the majority of training was those little things might just give that little bit of extra boost that little bit of assistance but then otherwise I think it's the pieces we come back to over and over it's the consistency the gut training the recovery and not leaning too heavily into one component is what's going to make or break your race day. Yeah, I think that's a really important mindset to have is it's not once a year thing I think sometimes we as not just runners but as humans try to we our brains are trained to look for patterns and so we'll try to pick up on that one thing and so we'll be like well I ran my best race always in the fall. But maybe it's because you have more consistent training and the course was better suited for your abilities as the spring race has disruption from the holidays at the start and poor weather leading into your training that kind of can impact motivation.

26:31So one of the other questions I've gotten is is summer training for fall race actually maybe is it worse because all of my runs are now slower. Oh, that's a really good question because I've also heard people say like how am I supposed to adapt to the mechanics of marathon pace if I'm having to go 30 seconds per mile or slower because I live in the south or something. So you know, I think that's a fine balance based on where you live so and based on your response. So I think there is something to be said about workout quality and if you're one of those runners who really decays quickly in the heat and is so hot and so he may where you are maybe it's worth pulsing in the treadmill. Whether you bring in the treadmill on your recovery run day just to give your body a break from the stress of the heat or you take your hard workouts to the treadmill so you can hit those paces a little bit more. Usually I see better luck with the first one actually because like then they can go into the workouts to the workouts outside and build their confidence from that still with heat adjusted paces but they aren't stressing themselves with heat weekend week out but what would you say.

27:44Yeah that's the treadmill becomes a key component I know when I lived in Miami I actually I did my hard workouts on the treadmill but I also don't dislike the treadmill which I understand is not a favorite for a lot of people and I hit pretty much all of my PRs. I think because I wove in that high quality so I do think that becomes the key to it I don't think summer running has to mean your fall racing is going to be worse because you were slower but I think just like in the winter you have to be open to how do I adapt this training like I know you want to run outside. So it's a trade off of how important is your goal versus how much do we have to adjust everything because it's 85 degrees and 90% humidity. And I think also like with the adjustments and those we have to be flexible in our routines like all of some people who would rather run in the afternoon but come summer they just have to run in the mornings even if the humidity is higher usually it's overcast and stuff and so.

28:54You know I don't often like to point it running and be like tough it out and stuff but sometimes you do have to weigh these trade outs of if I am very concerned about my workout quality and I want to do it outside maybe I do have to strategically think that that day it is best to get out at 5 5 30 a.m. And I definitely know athletes who they just do not recover from heat training like it just they overheat so quick like it's over 50 degrees and they're already like it's too hot outside so I think if you know that about yourself. Then train for shorter races or use the summer as your base building where other people are maybe doing it in the winter and instead of creating that pressure around like I have to do a spring and a fall marathon maybe you don't maybe like fall gives you a chance to do something else and then you use your more optimal training of winter for spring marathon.

29:55Oh yeah I agree with that and I've seen that really work especially for like you know if all of some athletes like go the spring in the fall and they're like I'm going to do a January to March marathon because we have those available like there's so many in California or Texas that time of year or even some other parts like they'll thrive with those conditions where they can train in the cold and race in the cold and you don't need to do two marathon a year to improve and I know the fall seasons hard because you get FOMO but. It really is knowing yourself and what works best for you. I think what's exciting for me right now is that yes the marathon majors are getting a great deal of the attention and that is part of what is driving people to focus on the fall. But so many other races are popping up and they aren't staying small very long or ones that were small are getting bigger so if you're sort of like yeah but I want that experience of like the crowd and whatever. There are so many options like you said that are happening in all months now and so it doesn't have to be one of those and obviously all races count I know people know that but we do get excited about certain ones because we have seen them or they have a little bit more marketing behind them honestly.

31:16So yeah thinking more about like I don't know what else excites you where's a place maybe you want to go maybe you're the person who gets people excited about a different race instead of just the ones that you're seeing so much of. Yes, no I I wholly agree with that and I think sometimes also if you are very concerned about like how conditions are going to help you you can usually better predict and train for conditions local. To you then going away where there could be differences in humid like I see some of those people underestimate the humidity of the Great Lakes region which as someone who you still live there it's so rough and so sometimes you know if you know the humidity really hurts you bad maybe it's best to pick a closer race to you if you don't live in a humid area. I will agree with that when I lived in Miami and people would come down for the Miami marathon in January and yes Miami is cooler than it was still very humid and like 70 degrees and that is very hard if you've been training in 30 degrees so flip side of the summer training is if you're training through the winter and you go to a hot race.

32:23If you have not done all of those heat acclimation protocols it is very hard. It is even going from him like dry to humidity is very hard like when I went from Boulder in ran CIM it was cold at the butt I had been in altitude for over a year and I was not prepared like I was not adjusted to handle so much humidity but I was like oh it's cold it'll be fine I use to live in humidity but it doesn't doesn't work that way. It doesn't and you're right we should probably do something talking a little more on humidity and do point at some point because I do think those are surprising factors. They are and there's not a great way to train unless you're who is the one who was like boiling pots of water around his treadmill for the Olympus. I don't think I saw that. Oh yeah yeah yeah. All right any final thoughts on thinking about summer training and fall racing. I think it's really worth like having this dual mindset of both like process and outcome where when you're in the training you've adjusted your paces and you're just focused on finding that balance of I'm applying the stimulus.

33:35I'm recovering and not psyching yourself out about what is it going to be on race day and how am I going to hold my goal pace on race day if it's XYZ condition. Like it's very much like stay in the present adjust for the day you get and as race day comes prepare for that and adjust for that but we never know in July what October is going to look like that you're even if we can guess from like El Nino patterns and stuff. And I think you'll just save yourself a lot of anxiety if you kind of tamper some of your expectations and stay present in training what about you. It still holds true that consistent summer training does pay off in the fall just probably not for the reasons that we've all been led to believe. Awesome well if you liked this episode take a time share it with some of your friends leave us a comment and Spotify or rate and review us on Apple.