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Staying hydrated is important not only for performance when running but also for basic health every day. To stay properly hydrated throughout the day, get in the habit of carrying a water bottle with you wherever you go. Drink enough so that your urine remains pale yellow or clear in color.

Many runners believe that cool conditions are ideal for marathon running, but research has shown that relatively
cold
weather is even more conducive to running faster times. Recently, researchers from the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine gathered many years’ worth of race results and weather data from six major North American marathons and performed statistical analyses to determine the effect of air temperature on finishing times among runners at various levels of performance.

The results showed a clear trend toward faster times at colder temperatures. For example, the finishing times of male race winners were closest to the course record (only 1.7 percent slower than the very best time on each course) when the air temperature was between thirty-four and fifty degrees. The finishing times of the top male runners were 2.5 percent slower than the course record, however, when the temperature was between fifty-one and fifty-nine degrees. And at temperatures exceeding sixty, finishing times fell off even more dramatically.

The ideal marathon temperature, according to these analyses, was a bone-chilling forty-one degrees. Think about that when you sign up for your next marathon!

Most marathons are held in the spring and fall, when the weather is typically neither cold nor hot but cool. Interestingly, however, most ultramarathons are held in the summer. I suppose the people who manage these events figure that if you’re going to run extreme distances, you might as well toss in extreme heat. The Badwater Ultramarathon, with its 135-mile total distance and its cumulative elevation gain of nineteen thousand feet, would be hard enough if it were held in February, but instead it takes place in the middle of July, when Death Valley temperatures can reach 130 degrees!

If I hadn’t finished Badwater six times myself (after collapsing at the halfway mark in my first attempt), I might not believe a human being could be capable of running so far in such extreme heat, but with adequate training, a calculated pace, and constant fluid intake, it can be done. In fact, biologists say that when it comes to running long distances in the heat, human beings are better designed than almost any other species on earth. We have many times more sweat glands than most other animals, allowing us to dissipate excess heat from the core to the surface of our bodies at a high rate. Our paucity of hair allows us to enjoy the cooling effect that comes with the evaporation of sweat into the atmosphere.

Tips for Heat Acclimation

Whenever you relocate from a temperate environment to a hot one (with air temperatures exceeding eighty-five degrees), it’s best not to immediately resume your normal training routine. Instead, give your body a chance to acclimate to the new conditions. Here’s how to do it:

1. On the first day, run lightly or do not run at all. Either way, spend some time outside in the afternoon heat.

2. The next day, go for a shorter-than-usual run at a slower-than-normal pace.

3. Gradually increase the duration and intensity of your runs each subsequent day until you’re doing your normal workouts by the sixth or seventh day. Research has shown that it takes that long for the body to fully acclimate.

Humans also have a remarkable ability to adapt to running in the heat. After two weeks of heat training, runners exhibit a markedly increased sweating capacity, greater blood volume, reduced salt concentration in their sweat, and other changes that enable them to run substantially faster and farther without overheating.

Runners seldom experience heat illness, as many other animals would if they attempted to run far in very hot environments, because the human body has built-in mechanisms to prevent it. Your subconscious brain is able to sense your core body temperature and knows the upper limit that can be allowed before organ and tissue damage occur. As your core body temperature approaches this limit during running, you will begin to experience feelings of discomfort and fatigue and your pace will drop involuntarily. These symptoms typically emerge before you’re in any real danger of bodily injury—thus preventing you from harming yourself.

Hydration Guidelines for Runners

Consuming fluid during your workouts and races will help you run stronger and may help you avoid overheating. Here are a few simple guidelines to follow:

• Consume fluid during all runs lasting an hour or more, and during runs of any duration in very hot weather (eighty-five degrees or higher). This will improve your performance by limiting the amount of dehydration you experience during your workouts.

• Carry your fluid in a squeeze bottle, such as those used by cyclists, and keep the bottle in a fluid belt; or use a hydration pack with an internal bladder for storing liquid (such as a CamelBak). Both items can be purchased at most running specialty shops or ordered online. My personal favorite is the North Face Gulper.

• Know how much fluid you will need for a long run before you start, and create a plan to ensure you have access to enough. If you will need more fluid than your hydration system will hold, put a five-dollar bill in your pocket and buy a bottle of liquid from a convenience store midway through your route, or return home for a refill.

• For the best results, use a sports drink instead of water. Sports drinks hydrate better than water because they replace sodium and other minerals that are lost in sweat, whereas water does not.

• Drink small amounts frequently: roughly four to eight ounces every ten to fifteen minutes. Your stomach empties faster when it’s fuller. Drinking frequently helps keep your stomach consistently fuller.

• The exact amount of fluid you need depends on your weight, your running pace, and how long you run. So try to listen to your body and tune in to your individual hydration needs.

• Don’t force yourself to drink more than you’re comfortable consuming. This can lead to gastrointestinal stress or, in extreme cases, a dangerous dilution of the blood known as hyponatremia, or water intoxication.

• Drink one or two glasses of water after completing your run as well. Even when you drink appropriately during a run, by the time you finish you may be somewhat dehydrated without even knowing it.

Many runners believe that overheating is caused primarily by dehydration, but in most cases it’s not. Dehydration can make overheating more likely, but the main cause of overheating is the accumulation of heat produced by working muscles. So the most effective way to prevent overheating is to slow your pace.

The body’s primary cooling mechanism while running in the heat is perspiration. The higher your sweat rate, the more heat you can transfer from the core of your body to the environment. Improving your fitness level also improves your sweat response. The fittest runners tend to have the greatest sweating capacity and therefore have the greatest ability to regulate their body temperature while running.

Another way to enhance your sweat rate is to drink fluids while you run. As you become progressively dehydrated during a run, your blood volume decreases, and as your blood volume decreases, so does your sweat rate. Drinking while you run keeps your blood volume and sweat rate from falling as quickly. Exercise scientists used to believe that drinking during exercise in the heat kept the body temperature lower, but recent studies using high-tech sensors that athletes actually ingest before racing have shown otherwise. Whether they drink or not, runners unconsciously adjust their pace to keep their core body temperature below the safety limit. It the follows that by allowing your body to dissipate more heat through sweating, drinking on the run allows your muscles to work harder (in other words, it allows you to run faster) while maintaining a safe body temperature. Put succinctly, drink plenty because sweat rules!

In the triple-digit heat of the Desert Classic Marathon, the Endurance 50 support crew understood the importance of keeping the runners well hydrated. Over the course of the run, Koop, Garrett, Hopps, and Robin worked tirelessly to keep everyone safe. We even brought in reinforcements from headquarters: namely, Jim Anderson, of the Squires Sports Group, and his family, whom he recruited to lend a hand because of the extreme heat. Together, they doled out ninety gallons of liquid and burned through more than a hundred pounds of ice in an effort to keep us all cool and hydrated.

The Ideal Sports Drink

Not all sports drinks are the same. I recommend that you choose one with the following characteristics:

•
Six to eight percent carbohydrate (fourteen to nineteen grams per eight-ounce serving).
Drinks with higher level of carbohydrates will not be absorbed as quickly and may cause gastrointestinal distress (nausea, stomach bloating, and sometimes also vomiting or diarrhea).

•
At least 120 milligrams of sodium per eight-ounce serving.
You need this amount of sodium to maintain proper fluid balance in your body. Also, sodium aids the absorption of fluid, so it doesn’t slosh around in your stomach.

•
At least two types of carbohydrates.
Different types of carbohydrates are metabolized through different pathways. Therefore, sports drinks containing multiple carbohydrate sources are able to deliver energy to the muscles faster than sports drinks with an equal total amount of just one type of carbohydrate. Look for some combination of glucose, sucrose, dextrose, maltodextrin, and fructose.

•
Not too much fructose.
Avoid sports drinks whose labels list fructose or high-fructose corn syrup as their first ingredient. Too much fructose can cause GI distress during exercise.

At the midpoint of the run, I began experiencing mild vertigo from the heat and lack of sleep. It shook me to the core. I’d felt this way before during other long races over the years, and I realized that I was entering a dangerous spiral, because my mind just wasn’t operating clearly on the fewer than six combined hours of sleep I’d gotten over the past two days. Thankfully, I still had enough wits left to know what to do.

“Koop,” I muttered in the general direction of the SAG wagon. “Badwater tactics.”

Koop had been with me during my sixth Badwater Ultramarathon this past summer and knew precisely what I was talking about. When I reached the SAG wagon the next time around, he had hoisted the cooler on top of the vehicle’s roof and instructed me to stand under it. Shocking as it was, he dumped the icy contents over my head.

Instantly, I was revived. Most important, my mental acuity jumped up a couple of dozen points and I was able to think clearly once again. Feeling my core temperature cooling was reassuring, and I now realized how close to the edge I’d gotten.

“Keep an eye on me, will ya?” I said to Koop. “I was losing it back there.”

Over the course of the next ten miles, he repeated the ice shower routine three more times. Our finishing time in the Desert Classic Marathon was the second lowest of the entire Endurance 50. All of us—including five first-timers—made it the whole way, though it was a slog. Still, it beat passing out on the roadside and being carted off to the ER, that’s for sure.

When we got to the finish, I hopped directly into the large cooler filled with drinks. I didn’t care that there were a bunch of sports beverages and bottles of water floating next to me; I needed an ice bath, so in I went.

It would have been nice to take more post-marathon ice baths during the Endurance 50, as I firmly believe in the benefits of doing so: They not only cool you down but also reduce muscle pain and inflammation. Still, it just wasn’t possible most of the time. It was a matter of trying to wrap things up as tightly as possible at the Finish Festival so we could get on the road for the next state. The trade-off for delaying our departure for an ice bath would have been fewer hours of sleep for everyone. The Endurance 50 had become a team event, and I felt like we were all integrally dependent on one another to perform at our peak. To me, this meant, among other things, that I needed to give the crew adequate time to rest and recuperate. I could sacrifice some niceties—like post-race ice baths—for the good of the team.

I dunked my head under one last time and headed into the bus soaking wet. English was sitting in the driver’s seat looking at a weather report.

“Okay, wheels up shortly,” I said to him. “Where we off to next?”

“Valley of Fire.”

Maybe I should have stayed in that cooler longer.

Day 20

October 6, 2006

Valley of Fire Marathon

Overton, Nevada

Elevation: 1,868’

Weather: 78 degrees; partly cloudy

Time: 4:06:55

Net calories burned: 63,740

Number of runners: 35

After running in hundred-degree temperatures the previous day, I did not consider the section of Nevada known as the “Valley of Fire” to be the most appealing destination for my next marathon. I would have preferred the Valley of Blustery Winds or even the Valley of Ice. Anything but Fire. However, names can be deceiving. The high temperature in the Valley of Fire Marathon was more than twenty degrees cooler than it had been in Phoenix. Granted, seventy-eight degrees isn’t exactly the ideal temperature for marathon running either. But after yesterday, it felt perfect.

My good friend Ferg Hawke had come out to run with me. When the first rays of sunlight hit the red sandstone valley, it looked as if its walls were on fire. The last time Ferg and I had run together, that fire could have been real. We’d competed in the Badwater Ultramarathon, in temperatures that crested 120 degrees and melted the soles of the shoes of those who weren’t careful.

“This feels pretty comfortable to me,” Ferg commented as we ran through the Valley of Fire, admiring the beautifully sculpted arches and burning rock walls. “Remember our last run?”