Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben E Lou
Did my last pre-race run this morning and it felt good. It has gotten a little warmer and muggier here lately: around 70 with 98% humidity. It's supposed to be around 60 in Myrtle Beach on Sunday morning, so I'm hoping that will work to my advantage. I don't know for sure, but based on training so far, it seems like around 60 is the optimal temperature for me.
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Based on studies from Jack Daniels, 60 degrees heat index is roughly the temperature where your body starts having to do more work to keep itself cool from the outside heat. Obviously this is complicated if people wear warmer clothes to run in also, but around 60 degrees is where your body is not having to exert extra effort to cool itself (effort that you otherwise could put to increasing your pace). For a half marathon distance, the difference between 60 degrees and 70 degrees could be several minutes of performance.
Other studies have gone to show that temperature could go a bit further below 60 degrees to continue helping improve performance, some down in the low 50s even, but I think at some point it seems to depend somewhat on other conditions (such as different people handling it differently) though. The studies also show that some of the effect of warmer temperature is a mental effect of fatigue more than a physical one as well though.