The Heat Chamber: a new dimension
It’s no surprise that heat acclimation is required for Badwater. It’s probably the most frequent question I get asked in fact. So what does heat training look like? How do you do it in the UK?
Firstly, what is heat training? Well firstly I’m not an expert and there are many different protocols you can follow. I’ll explain what we are doing in this block of training, I’ll talk through how it’s felt and what it makes me think.
Protocol: 10 days, 1 hour a day looking to elevate core temperature.
I have a small room with a treadmill in it and two fan heaters on full blast. Whilst the UK has been enjoying a bit of May sunshine, I’ve been inside. The room gets to about 41/42°C before I start running, creeping up to about 44°C over the hour. I take 3 bottles in, an iPad and an icepack to rest my phone on. I’m wearing my Polar HR strap, FlowBio sweat sensor and Core Body temperature sensor.
Day 1: Set off far too fast had a long sleeve on and soon was deep in pain territory. Pace dropped off rapidly and I was really questioning myself, top came off and I was crawling. Shit, this is bad. I finish and lie on the floor, a puddle quickly forms. I compose myself and then get upstairs to the shower - weighing myself. I weigh myself naked before and after, I also weigh my bottles before and after. I lost 2.8l and drank 1.3l - that’s a big net loss and something to focus on.
Day 2: Started more slowly and things didn’t unravel quite so fast, but they did unravel. This was a bit more sensible but still not good. Lost 3l, drank 1.8l - need to take another bottle in with me, that’s 4 from now on.
Time for a bit of geeking out, here’s day 1 HR and core temperature graph:
Massive HR peak, then quite erratic. Core temp climbs quickly and then stabilises.
I was nervous after day 2, I know this is early in the training block - but this was an hour and I was really finding it tough. How the hell was I going to do this for 135 miles? Park it Ben, trust the process. This was playing on my mind and hard to ignore, I was reminded I’ve done a lot of hot running in the past.
Day 3, 4, 5 and we are starting to adjust. I’ve got temperature showing on my watch now, starting to feel what different temperatures are like - I mean beyond the obvious “hot”.
As with all training, there’s an adaption, I find it’s a feeling of capacity or depth. You feel like you can push a bit, there’s more control, not that instant “limit” feeling. You get this in everything it’s like the gap between “pushing” and :”failure” has grown.
Here’s day 4 session:
No HR spike, much more controlled response.
Day 7 today: Now I feel like I’m training again. The first few days were surviving, now I feel I’m starting to really understand more. I played with pace today, set off harder, pulled back a bit - just learning and observing how my temperature adapted. Although it’s only an hour and I don’t need the fuel, I am starting to push Maurten, it’s important to train every aspect. Less than 38°C is just “hot”, over that and you certainly feel it more. Up above 38.5°C and you really start to feel it.
I’m also wearing my District Vision kit - making sure everything works in the heat, everything feels good in the extremes.
That said, day 1 max was 38.3°C and I was in all sorts of trouble, today was 38.8°C and I was feeling good.
The home gym is not as hot as Death Valley will be, but it’s much more humid - as a result there is very little evaporative cooling going on. There’s a lot to learn here, the adaptation is still happening. Three more days in this block, it’s been interesting and a little daunting too.
There will be more on heat, a lot more, but for now - time for some water and salt.