Ok so even though it is Winter down here in The Land of Aus, which kind of indicates how long it took me to get around to writing this, I hope it is still useful.
Trying to balance work, family and training is never easy so I found I had to make better use of my free time, this often meant running during my lunch time, which is fine most of the year until we get to the middle of summer. This usually resulted in my trying to knock out my 10kms in 35-40 degree heat. During this time I would notice that my performance dropped dramatically and would have to take a few rests along the way. This was hurting not only my ego, but I was worried that I wasn't getting the most out of these runs. After doing some research I found what I thought to be the answer. I read some articles about sweat rate and hydration (there are some great articles here on the AIS site http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition/factsheets/hydration2) and was ready to beat the heat.
What I found was that I was losing around 3kg of fluid during a run and according to this research should try to ensure I wasn't losing more than 2% of my total body weight through sweat. Well I was going over 2% and concluded this was a major contributing factor to my drop in performance. After a little bit of maths and a lot of experimentation I was able to overcome this drop and was back to enjoying those mid-summer lunch runs again.
I know make sure that I grab a couple of big sips of water every couple of KMs. On longer runs or if the weather is especially warm I will also grab some sports drink straight afterwards to help recovery.
Just another reminder that running is a mix of art, science and hopefully some fun.
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