How Much Should My Pace Change During Summer?

[dragitoff]

I've been running for 2 and a half years now, but this is the first year I've made a huge jump in my running speed. Last year, I only ran one half marathon. No other races. Through April of this year, I had already run a full marathon, 3 half marathons and a 5k and PR'd in each one. My half marathon pace was in the 8:40mm range. I didn't register for any races through the summer or fall in anticipation for the heat, my busy time of work and getting ready for the WDW half in January and the Albany full in March.

As I'm training now, I'm trying to re-adapt myself to running a slightly slower pace for the full marathon. My goal for the full next year is to run a sub 4 hour marathon so I've been working with 9mm training paces. I was even content to allow myself to slow down and run the WDW half at that pace since it was during my full training and I would enjoy it more since I wouldn't be focused on a PR finish time.

My problem is I'm having great difficulty keeping my pace near my half pace or better during short runs. On my long runs, I'm locked in fairly well at my 9mm pace, but it's the short runs I'm curious about. You should know I live in South Georgia and I run during the week at 5am so it's cooler, but still in the low 70's with 100% humidity. On my weekend long runs, I'm running around 6am so it's similar conditions but gets up to mid 70's by the end of the run.

What is a realistic expectation for my pace to fall of during the much warmer temps and higher humidity times of the summer. Should I be concerned? I run about 25-30 miles per week and have for some time now so I haven't drastically changed my mileage. I'm tapering my long runs down every 3 weeks to try to keep myself from getting fatigued from too much running.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

My current 10k pace is right at 8:15. I run at a more relaxed pace on my long and intermediate distance training runs (even without heat) - about 90 seconds/mile slower than my 10k pace. I add another minute per mile if it is over 70 outside. But I do not dramatically reduce my speed for runs 5 miles or shorter. I run those at my goal pace for the race for which I am training.

I am currently running 45-55 miles/week, so shorter runs barely even register right now. If I were running fewer miles/week, that distance would drop to runs 4 miles or shorter.

ETA - slower running in the heat does not hurt your training. Once it cools down outside, you will quickly get your speed back - within a few weeks. This is especially so if you still run at least once/week at your goal pace for a few miles.

 

[dragitoff]

My current 10k pace is right at 8:15. I run at a more relaxed pace on my long and intermediate distance training runs (even without heat) - about 90 seconds/mile slower than my 10k pace. I add another minute per mile if it is over 70 outside. But I do not dramatically reduce my speed for runs 5 miles or shorter. I run those at my goal pace for the race for which I am training.

I am currently running 45-55 miles/week, so shorter runs barely even register right now. If I were running fewer miles/week, that distance would drop to runs 4 miles or shorter.

ETA - slower running in the heat does not hurt your training. Once it cools down outside, you will quickly get your speed back - within a few weeks. This is especially so if you still run at least once/week at your goal pace for a few miles.

That makes me feel better. This is my first summer of no run/walking so my pace has been more of a concern to me. I run with my wife a few times a month and her pace is around 9:50-10:00mm so I was worried that maybe it was hurting me running with her. I didn't want to quit because we really enjoy that time together and only do that for runs of 3-5 miles. Anything longer and we run our own paces.

I didn't want to get too hung up on pace, but even this past Saturday, I struggled with a 9:09 pace on my 13 miler. If I had of ran a 9:09 pace 3 months ago I may have quit running altogether since I was training and racing at mid 8mm for half marathons and mid-high 7's for 5k-10k's.

I've worked really hard to get where I am and I just didn't want to go backwards. I've lost nearly 60 pounds since I started running and even another 20+ since I ran my first full in January so I wanted to continue seeing improvement in my time. I'm getting older (will be 35 later this month) so I know in a few years it is more likely that my times will get slower rather than getting faster. I'd love to get a few more PR's under my belt before that happens!

 

[FFigawi]

I wouldn't worry about your pace. Focus more on your level of effort, or even better, your heart rate if you have a monitor. The pace you run in the heat will naturally be slower than one in cooler weather, and as long as you keep your effort the same, you won't lose any fitness or speed. It's 90-95 here in the morning, and I find my pace is about 30 sec/mile slower than "normal" at the same heart rate and effort.

 

[dragitoff]

I wouldn't worry about your pace. Focus more on your level of effort, or even better, your heart rate if you have a monitor. The pace you run in the heat will naturally be slower than one in cooler weather, and as long as you keep your effort the same, you won't lose any fitness or speed. It's 90-95 here in the morning, and I find my pace is about 30 sec/mile slower than "normal" at the same heart rate and effort.

Yeah. Forgive me for complaining about my temps here in Georgia! I know it's horrible where you're at. I really feel for you. It looks like most people are seeing 30 seconds are so difference so I don't feel bad at all. I'm not doing any long runs more than 15 miles during the summer just to keep my endurance up, but I'll be ok with slowing that pace down even more if I need to. My preference is to keep the mileage up so it's easier to settle into my training program once my busy season at work kicks in sometime around late October.

Finding the balance of just enough miles but not overdoing it will be my main focus.

 

[FFigawi]

Swimming is a great way to get in a workout in the summer too. No impact and really good aerobic conditioning. I've turned two of my running days into swim days again this summer, and I look forward to them much more than my runs.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

I wouldn't worry about your pace. Focus more on your level of effort, or even better, your heart rate if you have a monitor. The pace you run in the heat will naturally be slower than one in cooler weather, and as long as you keep your effort the same, you won't lose any fitness or speed. It's 90-95 here in the morning, and I find my pace is about 30 sec/mile slower than "normal" at the same heart rate and effort.

This is a great point, and is how I generally determine my pace for long/intermediate runs. I like to keep my heart rate between 120-135 for these runs, so the pace is determined by my heart rate.

It is important to have some guage other than the temperature. 90 degrees one day is not necessarily the same as 90 degrees another day. I ran last week in Louisiana - much worse than running in Ohio.

High humidity can be very dangerous because it kills the evaporative process. No evaporation means no body cooling, which means a higher heart rate is required to push blood to the surface. Tracking heart rate allows you to track effort before you feel tired. You can adjust on the fly.

 

[PrincessV]

I wouldn't worry about your pace. Focus more on your level of effort, or even better, your heart rate if you have a monitor.

OP, I love this thread! I live and train in coastal FL and, despite making it through last summer, I've struggled mentally with my pace this summer. It's all over the place, totally depending on how the heat feels. I had a lovely run in the rain Monday - full cloud cover plus a constant drizzle meant I could easily speed up without over-exerting. OTOH, I felt like my 7 miles Sat. morning - a heat index of 90+ at 6:30am and full sun - might actually kill me; I was going by numbers instead of effort. It was a good wake-up call, though, and I'm basically ignoring my gadgets as far as pace goes for the rest of summer.

 

[TigerTown]

I also strugle with the heat. I just ran my first half marathon last fall so my times are slow to begin with but I find that when I'm running in high humidity my pace drops by at least 30 seconds per mile.

 

[Diskidatheart]

Here is a timely article that I just received from Active.com regarding running in the summer heat. I thought I would share it as it has some useful information.

http://beta.active.com/running/Arti...m?cmp=291&memberid=146171574&lyrisid=41985226