What is going on? Run Bum family. It's your boy Scott I pants from all the way out here in Colorado, just chasing those cool summer temps on those hot summer days. Um, if you're down in the southeast right now, I know it's hot, I know it's humid. Um, so we've got a quick little solo episode from the Run, bum himself on uh, couple tips and tricks on how to stay cool.
Um, how to heat train, how to acclimate to heat, cuz uh, we all know it's not fun. So check it out. Hi, my name is Shawn Bla, but my friends call me Shawn Michael, or Run Bum. I've run over 300 ultra marathons. I've been first, last and everything in between. I started and owned run Bum Races where we put on 11 TR and ultra running races a year from central Florida to Southern Virginia.
I hope that with my trail running and race directing experience that I can help you train smarter, run further, and fall in love with trail running. If you find this podcast helpful and or entertaining, please help me out by sharing it. I'd also like to invite you to run or [00:01:00] volunteer at one of our mini races.
Welcome friends to the Bend Don't Break podcast.
Here we are in the south. A k a Satan's butt crack in the summer. If you are like me living in Atlanta or somewhere thereabouts here, it gets so hot and humid during the summer and it just sucks the energy out of you. Running. It kind of kills your dreams a little bit and it really makes you, uh, think or overthink.
In times on if you're doing the right thing and if signing up for a fall race or something like that, if you're gonna be able to finish. So I wanted to give you a few tips on what I do during the summer, uh, living here in the south, other than trying to get the heck out of it, uh, you know, in July and August.
But really, um, a couple tips is just number one, heat acclimation is like [00:02:00] altitude. Training, right? It's the same, same, same, but different, right? So it's like you are not gonna go from Florida to Colorado and be able, most likely to run up and down Pikes Peak. You might be able to kind of just do it and feel bad and not be fast and maybe walk most of it and have to stop a bunch.
You know, you can kind of endure until you can't, right? Well, heat, heat is just like that. So, I always recommend to people, it's like this takes two, three weeks to really get acclimated to the hardest thing, um, to really get acclimated. Is that shock? Like when you go from indoor setting to getting outside.
Okay. I always tell people as much they don't want to hear. This is wherever you spend the majority of your time. Right. So like, Um, if you're staying in a 62 degree AC room and then you go out and it's 95 outside, with a heat index over a hundred, it's gonna take you a [00:03:00] really long time to heat acclimate.
In fact, um, it's gonna be pretty hard. So, but we like to do everything in small increments and adjust slowly, right? So, um, I try to slowly turn up, uh, the temp. Wherever I'm spending time in my apartment, um, my parents' house, don't tell 'em like when I'm visiting or I'll just put more layers on if you, if whoever you're living with or whoever you're staying with, if they don't want it as warm, okay.
It seems silly, but you need to get your body used to being able to maintaining homeostasis. At a higher temperature. Okay. As you're doing that, um, most people run in the morning or in the evening because we work during the day. Right. Makes sense. Right. Very few people that I know of are able to run middle of the day when it's at its peak heat.
Um, So in doing so, um, a lot of times, like when it starts to get really hot, I'll kind of cut back on like long runs. Like, let's say normally I'm running a nine or to 11 mile run, which I'm [00:04:00] not. But let's say normally I am as like, you know, an easy run, I'll cut that back to like, A five to a seven mile to kind of allow my body to slowly acclimate.
If you are into heart rate training, this is awesome because guess what? You can really, um, dial your. Effort back based on your heart rate. So it's like, whereas, you know, a nine 30 might have been your average pace, now you might be going 10 30 in the heat for the same distance. So you can't go any faster than your body will allow.
And just like altitude, once you hit that critical point, like there's no, you've gotta fully cool your body off. So, um, again, Move slowly into acclimating to this, you know, at the beginning, you know, don't go hard. We're not doing intensity. And as, or long distance, like break up those runs into a morning and the evening run, you know, maybe run more often.
Maybe if you're [00:05:00] only going two or three miles, uh, after a week or two you can do like a little higher intensity or something like that. So, um, for me, I tr I personally do not run any. Well, I might participate in races in the south during the summer, but I don't really race anything over like seven, eight miles during the summer.
And really, if it's above like 80 degrees, I will not be racing all out. I might be participating. That's just for me as a day. Walking ginger. Um, heat gets me pretty well, um, but a couple keys, uh, to doing well during a race, um, when it is really hot. So like when you can't change the, um, You know, the temperature, obviously, we're just there to.
You know, kind of blow with the wind on that one, if you will. It's like, you know you're there for the ride, right? So what I recommend is stay wet, right? Anytime you see somebody running western states or bad water, stay wet. Stay wet. Stay wet. What's that mean? Water's gonna help. Cool Your core temperature, the cooler, [00:06:00] the water, the cool cooler can get.
Now at some point, putting WA, if it's so warm and you are exercising, which is increasing your heart rate, which is ultimately increasing your internal temperature, um, It will get to a point where you can't cool off. Even if you're sweating, dumping water up. It's so warm. So if that ever happens, which is danger zone area, you need to lay down fully in cool water or you need to get in somebody's car, blast the AC while being wet.
Sorry, forever's car. That is because that is now the only way for you to cool off everything is to really stop moving, get your heart rate low, and have, uh, Convection, I believe it is. Cool you off. Okay. Um, so we don't wanna get to that point, right? So that's why we want to be aware of our heart rate. We also want to be aware of our perceived effort.
And anytime we feel like we're getting warm, a little water over the top of the head, the back of the neck. You don't have to dump a whole bottle, [00:07:00] but that's what you need. A lot of people are just sitting there, oh my God, it's so hot. I'm just drinking water. I'm just drinking water. I'm just drinking water.
It's all about dehydration. If you're not hydrated enough going into a run, if you're only going five to seven miles, you really don't need to be drinking water. I don't care what temperature it is. Okay? Your body should be acclimated enough where you can go for an hour without having to chug a bunch of water.
Now again, Living in someplace like Florida where it's super humid, that may be a little different. You may need, want to be sipping water, but as a whole, if you have water with you and it's warm, drinking water is actually not going to cool you as much as pouring it on you will. Um, and in the south it's very different cuz it's so humid that we don't really get the full effect of sweat evaporating to cool us off.
Uh, it's quite. Interesting. So if you're on a trail run, stop before you get overheated. During the summer, if you see any water source, throw a water on, you have an extra bottle. Dunk it in, dump it off, you know, [00:08:00] take the time. I've gone and I've won races where people are way faster than I am. Okay.
Absolutely no questions asked. Way faster runners than I am. But I'm stopping to take the time and fully cool off. So highly recommend stay wet, stay cool. Other option if you are a male and you feel comfortable doing so. Uh, a you should never be wearing tight or thick clothing cotton during the summer.
No, no, no, no. You want something as thin as possible. Um, typically I go shirtless in the summer. Uh, it goes without saying, um, yeah, it's just too hot. Um, if for whatever reason you're trying to, let's say not get sunburned, um, there's a lot of like very, very, um, thin. Materials that you can get, uh, special stuff, you might spend a little, a few dollars more.
Um, but it'll be well worth it. I remember back in the day, Solomon made this just real, like you could see through. It almost looked like fishnet. It was like, ooh, going to some weird bar on the [00:09:00]weekend or something. But it was one of the best shirts I've ever owned in my life and it just, Cooled me off it wicked away.
I mean, and it was not heavy at all. It had UV protection, so I wouldn't get sunburned. I mean, it was all you could ever ask for in a shirt. Um, now with that being said, I also recommend a hat now. Think about hats as well, is if you have something that's bulky or doesn't have like the see through mesh or whatever, it's not gonna be breathable.
That's gonna hold heat on your head. That's one of the most important places that you want to get heat off of is from your head because your brain is there, obviously. Um, So one of the things I do is I have some running hats. Um, this is not one of 'em, but um, with our races, we give a lot of those away.
So I wear those, they wick stuff away. They can get wet, just get 'em all nasty, and then you just wash 'em off. It's fine. Um, Then some, some runs. Uh, if it's a really hot or I'm racing, I will start the race wet. I [00:10:00] will start the race by putting water all over me, and people are like, what is he doing?
Putting baby? Well? It's like, no, I'm going ahead and starting as cool as I possibly can. Also put ice under the top of my hat. That helps. Just to start off with again, you know, like. These are small things that might be one, 2% advantage or whatever. Now, I don't necessarily train like that because I want to get used to dealing with the heat.
Um, and now I've kind of told you some tips for like if you're racing, if you're running whatever, what I would recommend. In training is once you start getting acclimated to the heat, and it's gonna suck at first. Um, but once you're in that hot, uh, you know, temps outside or whatever, once you finish your workout, spend 20 to 30 minutes cooling off, if you will, uh, or just kind of getting back down to where you almost start, stop sweating or at least you feel.
Cooled off, Ty typically 20, 30 minutes wouldn't necessarily recommend [00:11:00] standing in the sun or getting in like a sauna or anything like that. Uh, your core temperature's heated up enough that that could kind of put you into a critical situation, which we may not want depending on how hardcore you are. Um, but yeah, it, that helps out too instead of just finishing with the workout and immediately jumping back in the AC or a cold plunge or something like that.
So all of these are, um, I hope tips that I use that will help. You.