Racing in the Heat

(Taken from Frodeno Going Mental by Jan Frodeno)

All of Europe is scorching right now, and this weekend one of the classic races of the calendar walks straight into it: Frankfurt. The course has nudged toward shade over the years, which helps, though a few extra trees won’t out-argue the thermodynamics. Heat is going to slow you down. Not because you’re weak, but because of how the body works.

There’s a strange gap between how hot you feel and what’s actually going on inside. Your core temperature climbs, your heart rate drifts up, and unlike a civilised cool day where the heart settles between efforts, in the heat it just stays up there for much longer than you’d like. The mind gets a vote, though. Panic at the sensation and you’ll pace like you’re dying when you’re merely uncomfortable. Ignore it entirely and you’ll detonate at kilometre eighty. The move is acceptance. The heat is real, and chances are you will slow down.

Research on thermal perception found that athletes who accepted the discomfort, rather than fighting it, paced better. The suffering doesn’t go anywhere either way, so you may as well stop complaining about it.

The pacing reality

Your usual numbers are lying to you. A healthy dose of mistrust towards your normal power targets or pace zones is in order - they were written by a colder, more optimistic version of you. Knock off five to ten percent. If your normal is a 4:20 kilometre, plan for 4:35 to 4:50. On the bike, assume a low, double digit number of watts has quietly resigned.

The Norwegians, of course, have a method: an electronic thermometer up the rear end, reporting core temperature in real time. Excellent for science. Less excellent when 150 grams of carbs an hour are also trying to use that exit, and an expensive bit of kit to lose mid-race for reasons we don’t need to dwell on.

What actually works for cooling

Chrissie Wellington always swore by ice on the wrists as her cooling trick of choice. Ice vests make sense too, in theory - though keeping one cold and on your past transition two is a logistical near-impossibility. Plenty of pros also swear by the evaporative cooling caps, which are meant to shed heat faster. Not my favourite look, but if you’re already out there in full compression socks, you’re clearly not racing for the approval of the Paris fashion jury - although after this year’s LV show, who even knows anymore.

What I’d actually reach for is simpler. Ice in the mouth. Ice posted into your suit wherever it’ll go, while keeping half an eye on your skin - all that extra sweat plus a day of friction is a chafing recipe, and the ice doesn’t help. Water over the head and body on the bike - it evaporates as you ride and takes real heat with it. Same on the run: ice water over the head and neck at every aid station.

Walking the aid stations is not a moral failure, whatever your twenty-year-old self has to say about it. And it’s not really about resting - it’s about logistics. At race pace you grab half a cup, wear most of it, and miss the ice entirely. Slow to a walk for twenty seconds and you can actually do the job: two full cups down the throat, ice into the suit, more water over the head. Breathe for a moment, hydrate properly, then go again.

The walk drops your heart rate a touch as a bonus, but the water is the point. There’s a second payoff too: as I said, it’s much harder get your heart rate to recover once it’s up, so those twenty seconds at a walk buy you back a moment of reprieve

That’s the real argument for walking the aid station early: right now it’s a choice. You slow down because you decided to, collect your water and ice, and roll on. Leave it too long and the choice gets made for you - once you’re cooked medium well, you’re walking either way, just without the cups in your hand or any say in the matter.

You can’t out-run physics or biology. You’ll be hotter, slower and more exhausted, and the only real variable is what you do with that. You can spend the run cursing, or you can run the best race available in the weather you’ve actually got - as always, both is also an option.

The heat isn’t out to get you. It’s just indifferent. Panic is the only part of the day that’s optional.