Summer Training Tips - with Andy Dubois
Posted on April 18 2017
We recently chatted with Australian supercoach, Andy Dubois from Mile 27, who coaches a number of the region's top athletes including Stone Tsang and Wong Ho Chung.
Summer is rapidly approaching and anyone who lives in Asia knows that it can be a challenging time to train. The weather is hotter and more humid, and there's less motivation with the racing season well in the future. Here are a few tips from Andy to help you through your summer of training:
- Accept that you are going to run slower as it's simply not possible to run as fast in hot humid conditions. It doesn’t mean you are less fit but it's an unavoidable fact. Heat and humidity go up, pace goes down, even for the well acclimatised.
- Whilst hydration is important, body temperature is more important as that's what drives hydration. If you just focus on hydration then you are treating the symptom, not the cause. Do all you can to keep body temperature down. Take frozen water bottles with you for any run over an hour and use it to pour over you to keep cool. On especially hot and humid days, pour over you before you even start, so you start ahead of the game. Take advantage of any stream crossings. A few stops of a few minutes throughout your run will greatly add to the quality of the run.
- Avoid longer / harder runs on really hot humid days. Sustained tempo runs of 30 to 60 minutes have the greatest potential to increase body temperature. If your training calls for tempo runs, break them up with short rests to allow body temperature to come down between efforts. Same goes for any intervals or hill repeats - longer rest / recovery periods help to reduce body temperature.
- Accept that long runs become a logistics operation on how you can carry or obtain enough cold water to keep you going. Plan the night before and freeze water bottles for the next day.
- Try and plan higher intensity workouts during cooler parts of the day. Get up earlier or get a head torch and practice your night running!
- Monitor hydration throughout the day - starting a session already dehydrated is not likely too end well! Then, when you're on the run, drink to thirst - no more, no less.
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