“Very hot day” - effect on Power during run, and post-race “calorie burn” rate (Read 79 times)

Hi -

So I feel dead of course after running mid-day today in the hot sun with high humidity. I usually run right after the sun comes up, when it is much cooler (by about 20-25 degrees F), and often with a little breeze. Right now I feel exactly the same as if I had run much farther than I did, or had run a much hillier course.

It got me wondering … does that feeling of being more “drained” today due to the more challenging environmental conditions correlate with any increased Power generation (total Power, including not just “effective” Power that moves me forward, but Form Power and anything else my body may be generating during the run)?

I was also wondering … having recently read that a big portion of the famed post-exercise increased metabolic rate is due to the body “working harder” to repair the micro-damage done by running (and working harder of course takes extra calories) … if that is true, since I feel like cr*p so much after running in this jungle-like clime today (I like to exaggerate, yeah) - does that mean that my body is going to have to work harder on self-repair than if I had run the course on a cooler day, and that therefore my metabolic rate will be higher for the next day or so than it would have been had I run my course on a cooler day?

Does anyone have any insight into these (weird!) questions and could maybe explain a bit?

Thanks!

The guys who run the Science of Sports blog have done a few series on heat and exercise.  I haven't seen that they address your question directly, and the pieces mostly date back 10 years or so, but may be a place to start.  Here's their collection of pieces tagged "heat":

 

https://sportsscientists.com/tag/heat/

Thank you for the very interesting reading link, Stacks II - I've bookmarked it!

I think I'm not going to get an answer on these questions of mine. So I guess I'm free to come up with my own!

1) I think there is a lot of Power generated when overheating, and that is the Power that is lost to making the overheated muscles move in a less efficient way. This is Power that is "lost", in other words it doesn't move us forwards any faster. It's more akin to "Form Power" in Stryd, in that it is inefficient use of energy.

2) I think the EPOC/"after burn additional calorie consumption" is higher after dehydrating during a run compared with a non-dehydrated run, because the body is doing more work in the hours/days afterwards to "repair itself".

So those are my hypotheses - possibly entirely wrong, but in the absence of anything I've heard or read to the contrary, there we go!

Thanks again Stacks II, and thanks for the folks that have read this thread.

I don't know that you're generating more power when you're hot. I imagine you are just a lot less efficient.