Dr. Eamon Duffy: If you're feeling bad, it's only going to get worse. You
Dr. Eamon Duffy: can hydrate, slow down, and feel better that way, but
Dr. Eamon Duffy: it's not going to feel better just by continuing at
Dr. Eamon Duffy: this same pace because your body is telling you, " Hey, I can't
Dr. Eamon Duffy: tolerate this for long periods of time."
Becs Gentry: Welcome to Set the Pace, the official New York Road
Becs Gentry: Runners podcast presented by Peloton. I am one of your
Becs Gentry: hosts, Becs Gentry, and our wonderful host and CEO of
Becs Gentry: New York Road Runners, Rob Simmelkjaer, will be joining us
Becs Gentry: for the conversation today. I'm kicking us off here as
Becs Gentry: we are here to talk about the weather. And being
Becs Gentry: English, we love it. We love talking about the weather. But particularly
Becs Gentry: right now, the summer heat that we are experiencing here
Becs Gentry: in New York and I think for the vast majority
Becs Gentry: of the East Coast, a lot of us heading out
Becs Gentry: for our runs as early as physically possible with our
Becs Gentry: personal schedules to get the miles in before the outdoor
Becs Gentry: air is just unbearable. It is literally historically hot here,
Becs Gentry: a heat dome parked over the eastern half of the
Becs Gentry: country right through the 4th of July. Here in Manhattan, Central
Becs Gentry: Park hit 100 degrees. Newark touched 104. And Philadelphia ran
Becs Gentry: three straight days over 101 degrees. It has been steamy.
Becs Gentry: And I can tell you from personal experience, it did
Becs Gentry: feel like I was running on the face of the
Becs Gentry: sun where I was running for most of those days.
Becs Gentry: I was worried the foam in my trainers was going
Becs Gentry: to melt. It was unreal. I have never sweated so
Becs Gentry: much. I have never made that many adaptations to my
Becs Gentry: pace. I have really, really learned to ignore my wearable
Becs Gentry: devices on days like we've had recently and just go
Becs Gentry: out there with my own brain leading the way, listening
Becs Gentry: to my body. All things that we are going to
Becs Gentry: have fantastic conversations with three great people who have a
Becs Gentry: lot of personal and shared experience in this. Many of
Becs Gentry: our runners and the reason why we're doing it is because
Becs Gentry: the hardest training of the year is literally going to be
Becs Gentry: happening in these worst conditions. We always think of winter
Becs Gentry: being the worst conditions for those spring marathons because you
Becs Gentry: potentially have to run through snow and ice and just
Becs Gentry: really cold, miserable temperatures in short, dark days. But it's
Becs Gentry: flipping on its head because now these hot, humid temperatures
Becs Gentry: are almost beating those cold winter days. We've got Sydney
Becs Gentry: Marathon on August the 30th, Berlin on September the 27th,
Becs Gentry: and Chicago on October 11th. And then we have the
Becs Gentry: TCS New York City Marathon coming in on November 1st,
Becs Gentry: and that is not in a safe zone. It could
Becs Gentry: still be a very warm day. So every one of
Becs Gentry: you runners choosing those start lines is getting yourself to
Becs Gentry: those start lines, building yourselves up through this incredible heat
Becs Gentry: and intensity. So whether you are chasing one of those
Becs Gentry: full marathons or you are just somebody who loves running, you
Becs Gentry: still get it. You still are trying to get yourself out
Becs Gentry: of the door to beat the heat before it overwhelms
Becs Gentry: you and potentially sidelines you for the rest of your
Becs Gentry: day because we all know that can happen. It definitely
Becs Gentry: can be a season that will make you stronger and
Becs Gentry: faster, but there are ways to do it sensibly and
Becs Gentry: that's what we're here to talk about today. We are
Becs Gentry: going to discuss how every runner can turn the heat
Becs Gentry: from this brutal summer into a potential secret weapon. So
Becs Gentry: stay tuned.
Speaker 3: History takes the track this summer in New York City.
Speaker 3: Join us for the USATF Outdoor and Para National Championships,
Speaker 3: July 23rd to 26th at Icahn Stadium in New York City as
Speaker 3: the sport celebrates 150 years of outdoor championships. Watch America's
Speaker 3: best athletes compete for national titles and records at one
Speaker 3: of track and field's most iconic venues. Secure your tickets
Speaker 3: today at usatf. org/ tickets. Again, that's usatf.org/tickets.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Becs, of course I follow you on Instagram so I
Rob Simmelkjaer: know you've been out there all summer putting in some
Rob Simmelkjaer: serious work in brutal conditions a lot more than I
Rob Simmelkjaer: have, so way to go. If anyone's qualified to talk
Rob Simmelkjaer: about making summer a runner's secret weapon, it is you.
Rob Simmelkjaer: But smart summer running is complex. It's part endurance, part
Rob Simmelkjaer: science, part discipline. So to make sure we cover all
Rob Simmelkjaer: the angles, we've brought in a superstar lineup of experts
Rob Simmelkjaer: today to help us talk about this.
Becs Gentry: We absolutely have, and I am thrilled to listen to
Becs Gentry: them all and learn from them myself. So first and foremost, we
Becs Gentry: have Dr. Eamon Duffy who is a sports cardiologist at
Becs Gentry: Columbia and NewYork- Presbyterian. Eamon is not only a distance
Becs Gentry: runner himself though, he founded Columbia Runners Heart Clinic, which
Becs Gentry: is a practice built entirely around the hearts of runners
Becs Gentry: and endurance athletes from first timers to ultra marathons, everybody,
Becs Gentry: which is just so fabulous. Eamon spends his days helping
Becs Gentry: runners train hard, chase PRs whilst keeping their hearts healthy
Becs Gentry: and safe. So yes, lots of high- fives to that.
Becs Gentry: We are also excited to mention today though that Dr. Duffy
Becs Gentry: is about to join the New York Road Runners Medical
Becs Gentry: Advisory Council. So huge congratulations from the get- go today,
Becs Gentry: Dr. Duffy.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Thank you. Thank you.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Welcome to that panel. The Medical Advisory Group helps us
Rob Simmelkjaer: on all things medical. So excited to have you join
Rob Simmelkjaer: that, Dr. Duffy. Also joining us now, water obviously is
Rob Simmelkjaer: a key part of running in general, especially in warm
Rob Simmelkjaer: weather. Hydration is everything. And so we have Dr. Eric
Rob Simmelkjaer: Roy joining us today. He is a water specialist, scientist
Rob Simmelkjaer: I should say, who founded the water filtration company, Hydroviv.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Did I pronounce that correctly? Okay. He did that out
Rob Simmelkjaer: of his Washington DC apartment by the way, in the
Rob Simmelkjaer: wake of the Flint, Michigan water crisis, which we all
Rob Simmelkjaer: remember. And they build filters custom- tuned to a city's
Rob Simmelkjaer: specific contaminants. He pitched it on Shark Tank in 2019,
Rob Simmelkjaer: caught Mark Cuban's eye. And in 2021, Hydroviv was acquired by Culligan,
Rob Simmelkjaer: our official water partner, where Eric is now the head
Rob Simmelkjaer: of science for consumer products. Dr. Roy is here to
Rob Simmelkjaer: give us the science of hydration, not just how much
Rob Simmelkjaer: to drink but what actually should be in your bottle.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Dr. Roy, thanks for joining us.
Dr. Eric Roy: Thanks for having me.
Becs Gentry: I have so many questions for you. So many questions,
Becs Gentry: but I'm not going to delay in our third wonderful guest
Becs Gentry: today. Rounding out our round table is someone we all
Becs Gentry: know very well, our New York Road Runners' very own coach
Becs Gentry: Ben Delaney. Ben is New York Road Runners' director of
Becs Gentry: training programs, and he basically runs our entire coaching operation.
Becs Gentry: He's there for the group training all over the city,
Becs Gentry: Team for Kids, and that huge army of paces you
Becs Gentry: see in the blue and white jerseys, getting tens of
Becs Gentry: thousands of you listeners to your goal times at New
Becs Gentry: York Road Runners races. Ben is the perfect guest for
Becs Gentry: someone like this one because he coaches by effort, not
Becs Gentry: pace. And he's going to tell us all about how it really
Becs Gentry: feels out there on the day- to- day.
Ben Delaney: Yeah, it can feel so tough, but thank you so much, Becs. I
Ben Delaney: am so excited to be on this panel. Summer running
Ben Delaney: is maybe not my favorite. I've talked to Rob in
Ben Delaney: the past about this. I'm a winter guy, but summer
Ben Delaney: running is part of what we deal because hey, the
Ben Delaney: TCS New York State Marathon is in November. If you're running it, this
Ben Delaney: is the reality, but we have so much information. I just can't
Ben Delaney: wait to dive into this and talk to everybody because we could
Ben Delaney: all learn something.
Becs Gentry: We will.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Absolutely.
Becs Gentry: We will. Dr. Roy, Dr. Duffy, Coach Ben, welcome. Let's
Becs Gentry: get this rolling.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Thank you.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Absolutely. So all right, we've all had bad summer runs and I wanted
Rob Simmelkjaer: to ask each of you, I know you're all runners,
Rob Simmelkjaer: to tell us about your worst summer run or workout,
Rob Simmelkjaer: one where it says in our notes here, it's funny,
Rob Simmelkjaer: one where you genuinely thought about stopping. In my case
Rob Simmelkjaer: it's, or where you actually did stop, because I have
Rob Simmelkjaer: definitely had those. I remember last summer I just was
Rob Simmelkjaer: supposed to do, I don't know, an eight or a nine
Rob Simmelkjaer: mile, not a crazy long- ish run during my taper,
Rob Simmelkjaer: I think. And I just stopped. I just couldn't keep
Rob Simmelkjaer: going. The heat, the humidity was just brutal. So Coach
Rob Simmelkjaer: Ben, since you've already told us how much you love
Rob Simmelkjaer: running in hot weather, tell us about your worst summer run.
Ben Delaney: Wow, just coming out swinging for the fences, Rob, coming
Ben Delaney: right at me. Yeah, Becs mentioned it before we got on the air,
Ben Delaney: there's so many summer runs that you'd rather just forget,
Ben Delaney: never remember. You want to put them out of your memory as
Ben Delaney: quick as you can. And the odd is, the one
Ben Delaney: that came to mind to me was also a taper
Ben Delaney: run. I think sometimes you get to that mode where
Ben Delaney: you're just kind of tired, your body's in this weird
Ben Delaney: space. And I think I was doing the final six or
Ben Delaney: 10 miles of the TCS New York City Marathon course with
Ben Delaney: some friends of mine. And I got to the Bronx
Ben Delaney: and I was like, " No, I'm out. I'm done." And
Ben Delaney: it was hard and it's a mental check and it's
Ben Delaney: kind of a gut check and an ego bruise, but
Ben Delaney: you learn from it, you move on. And that's the
Ben Delaney: biggest thing I can take away is even on the
Ben Delaney: tough days, you learn something. What was going on? What
Ben Delaney: was happening? Bad days happen. There are no bad runs.
Ben Delaney: You just got to learn from where you are. So
Ben Delaney: you know what? I had a bad day. My marathon
Ben Delaney: went great. That was the saving grace.
Becs Gentry: Love that.
Rob Simmelkjaer: How about you, Dr. Duffy?
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Yeah, I would say I'm taken back to a run
Dr. Eamon Duffy: last June. I was preparing for a marathon late June,
Dr. Eamon Duffy: and this was my last real workout, maybe three weeks
Dr. Eamon Duffy: out. I was doing, I think it was 12, like
Dr. Eamon Duffy: a three- mile warmup and then 12 at marathon pace and then a three-
Dr. Eamon Duffy: mile cool down. And I went outside and it was 6:
Dr. Eamon Duffy: 00 AM, but it was already hot and humid. And
Dr. Eamon Duffy: I could tell it was going to be a rough
Dr. Eamon Duffy: morning, and it was brutal. I couldn't hold the marathon
Dr. Eamon Duffy: pace for more than six or seven miles once I
Dr. Eamon Duffy: started in that hard workout portion. And you're stressing the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: whole time because you feel like you should be able
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to do marathon pace three weeks out. And you're deep
Dr. Eamon Duffy: in your head thinking you're already disappointed and the marathon's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: going to be a challenge, but couldn't hold it through
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the full 12, 13 miles. Kind of held up, slowed down,
Dr. Eamon Duffy: limped home the last three and was super bummed about
Dr. Eamon Duffy: it. But in that setting, you have to remind yourself
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that when it's hot out there, your marathon pace, if
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that's what you're aiming for, your goal pace is going
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to be different. You cannot run the same paces at
Dr. Eamon Duffy: 80 degrees or even 70 degrees that you can run
Dr. Eamon Duffy: at 50 degrees. It's not comparable and you have to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: change your expectations and change your paces, honestly. When it
Dr. Eamon Duffy: gets warm, when it gets humid, my main takeaway for
Dr. Eamon Duffy: all of this is you have to slow down and you
Dr. Eamon Duffy: have to adjust what your expectations are and what your
Dr. Eamon Duffy: paces are. So I think about that one a lot
Dr. Eamon Duffy: last June and it taught me a lot about how
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to approach running in hot temperatures.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah. I want to get into more of the why, why
Rob Simmelkjaer: the warm temperatures affect us the way they do, but
Rob Simmelkjaer: we'll come back to that. What about you, Dr. Roy?
Dr. Eric Roy: As the others were going through their stories, I was
Dr. Eric Roy: kind of having some flashbacks. It was a few years
Dr. Eric Roy: ago I was just stacking up hours in prep for a 24-
Dr. Eric Roy: hour event, and I had just moved from the Northeast
Dr. Eric Roy: to Washington DC. This event was a 24- hour mountain
Dr. Eric Roy: bike race, but my shoes arrived before my bike did
Dr. Eric Roy: and I needed the hours. So I just laced up the
Dr. Eric Roy: shoes and took off out the door. And I think
Dr. Eric Roy: everyone knows there's a pretty big difference between the Boston
Dr. Eric Roy: suburbs and Washington DC. And about four hours into that,
Dr. Eric Roy: when you're in that final stack and hours phase, you're
Dr. Eric Roy: building as much mental resiliency as fitness. So it's like, okay,
Dr. Eric Roy: not going to quit, not going to quit, not going
Dr. Eric Roy: to quit. And that was obviously the wrong thing to
Dr. Eric Roy: do in this case. And honestly, it set back my
Dr. Eric Roy: training about 11 days quantitatively. So that's one of those
Dr. Eric Roy: where sometimes you just have to pull the parachute and
Dr. Eric Roy: turn back and be humbled a little bit. So that
Dr. Eric Roy: was my big takeaway from that. I'll never forget it.
Dr. Eric Roy: I cracked, had to take an Uber home. It was tough.
Becs Gentry: I literally, as you're all talking, I'm like, why have
Becs Gentry: I had so many?
Rob Simmelkjaer: Because you run so much. Yeah.
Becs Gentry: True.
Rob Simmelkjaer: The more you run, the more bad days.
Becs Gentry: ... pick one. There was so many from being so dehydrated.
Becs Gentry: I hallucinated when I was running a relay race from
Becs Gentry: LA to Vegas many, many, many years ago. But I
Becs Gentry: thought the RV that I had gotten onto was a
Becs Gentry: boat, and I thought the boat was spinning. Semi- cool,
Becs Gentry: but also scary when you know what it's doing to
Becs Gentry: your body. But most recently, and this comes from being
Becs Gentry: half a scatterbrain, half a tired working professional mom who was
Becs Gentry: training for one of the toughest mountain races in the
Becs Gentry: world. I was too busy getting my daughter to school
Becs Gentry: and making sure she had her sunscreen, her water, her
Becs Gentry: everything for school. And I was going to be driving
Becs Gentry: T to school and then from New York, I was
Becs Gentry: driving up to Beacon, New York. I got there, it
Becs Gentry: was one of the first super hot days we had.
Becs Gentry: Maybe a month or so ago it was going to
Becs Gentry: be over a hundred. So I'm trying, but battling against
Becs Gentry: traffic to get up there before midday. And I think I got there 10:30, 11:
Becs Gentry: 00. Got my pack all ready to go, reached in
Becs Gentry: to grab my electrolytes to put into my water. Hadn't
Becs Gentry: brought my electrolytes, had I? I packed everything for my daughter.
Becs Gentry: And gels, they have electrolytes in these days, which was
Becs Gentry: my only saving grace. And I had plenty of plain water,
Becs Gentry: but I'm such a heavy sweater and I'm not anywhere
Becs Gentry: near as qualified as you guys. But from the years
Becs Gentry: I've run, I know that I need electrolytes when I
Becs Gentry: run, especially on a day like that. And guys, I tell
Becs Gentry: you, I was halfway up the first hill and I
Becs Gentry: think I stopped. I looked like I jumped in the
Becs Gentry: reservoir that had just passed because I was drenched, my cheeks were
Becs Gentry: red, and I was just panicking that I didn't have
Becs Gentry: electrolytes because that's all I could think about. And I
Becs Gentry: went up once, I think I did two laps when I was
Becs Gentry: supposed to do five. And every time I would look
Becs Gentry: around, I could feel my reactions were getting slower and
Becs Gentry: tree branches were starting to look like what I thought
Becs Gentry: were bears or deer or just something that was scaring
Becs Gentry: me and rocks on the floor that weren't there. And so I
Becs Gentry: called it. I walked my way down for the second
Becs Gentry: half of it because I didn't want to break my
Becs Gentry: ankle. And I have never wrung my clothes out so
Becs Gentry: heavily when I got down and went straight to buy
Becs Gentry: some electrolytes knowing I had to drive home. But just
Becs Gentry: thinking of what I'd lost and just putting that sports
Becs Gentry: physiology and psychology together in the moment, I was like,
Becs Gentry: oh God, this is a really bad place to be
Becs Gentry: in, on a mountain by myself as a female, very
Becs Gentry: dehydrated in a hundred and something degrees. I was like, let's go. Let's go.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Not a fun day. Not a good one. But again,
Rob Simmelkjaer: you take on these crazy challenges so often that you're
Rob Simmelkjaer: just bound to have days like that. But I'm glad
Rob Simmelkjaer: you came out for that mountain okay, Becs. That's good.
Becs Gentry: Oh, yeah.
Rob Simmelkjaer: We've got you here to chat with everybody. Absolutely. That's
Rob Simmelkjaer: most important. Let's go to a little bit of talk
Rob Simmelkjaer: about what people are going through right now. So for
Rob Simmelkjaer: everyone who is looking at a fall marathon, Dr. Duffy,
Rob Simmelkjaer: this is now the period where they are ramping or
Rob Simmelkjaer: maybe already have ramped up, especially if they're doing one
Rob Simmelkjaer: of the earlier ones like Sydney or Berlin. Why is
Rob Simmelkjaer: the race really kind of won or lost in these
Rob Simmelkjaer: weeks and months, July, August, September, if you're running that
Rob Simmelkjaer: late, not so much on race day?
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Yeah. I would say because heat is a form of
Dr. Eamon Duffy: stress for the body and one of the most effective
Dr. Eamon Duffy: forms of stress, and it's through enduring that stress that
Dr. Eamon Duffy: you build endurance. And it's that endurance that will carry
Dr. Eamon Duffy: you through on race day many months from now. What
Dr. Eamon Duffy: heat does to the body is essentially your body has
Dr. Eamon Duffy: two competing priorities while you're running in heat. One, you're
Dr. Eamon Duffy: trying to run and two, you're trying to stay cool.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: And you run by pumping as much blood as you
Dr. Eamon Duffy: can and oxygen and nutrients to your muscles, your legs
Dr. Eamon Duffy: in particular, but also your diaphragm, which controls the lungs
Dr. Eamon Duffy: and your brain. And when it's cool out, your body's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: shunting all that blood towards the muscles and you feel
Dr. Eamon Duffy: great. When it gets hot, there's this competing priority to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: cool down. And the way that the body cools down
Dr. Eamon Duffy: is through the skin and through sweating. And so the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: body shunts blood to the skin and you only have
Dr. Eamon Duffy: a finite amount of blood, plasma, et cetera. And so
Dr. Eamon Duffy: blood is shunted to the skin to cool down, and
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the blood therefore is not going to the legs to the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: same degree. So these competing mechanisms, and we prioritize cooling
Dr. Eamon Duffy: down. The systems in your body don't know you have
Dr. Eamon Duffy: a marathon six months from now. They're just trying to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: stay cool. And so the blood's going to the skin
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to cool down. There's not as much in the legs
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to bring oxygen or to clear those waste products from
Dr. Eamon Duffy: exercise. We all know about lactate, et cetera. And so
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the way that your body compensates is by essentially working
Dr. Eamon Duffy: harder. Your heart rate starts to go up and that's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: how you feel it most of all. But that's sort
Dr. Eamon Duffy: of the competing mechanisms that's going on. And through the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: summer months, you train those mechanisms. Heat is something that
Dr. Eamon Duffy: you can acclimate with time over days and weeks of
Dr. Eamon Duffy: running in the heat and your body gets better at
Dr. Eamon Duffy: it. And that is building strength, building endurance. And so
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the summer months are key for those big fall races.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: And as demoralizing as it can be, as long as
Dr. Eamon Duffy: you do it safely, running in the warm temperatures is
Dr. Eamon Duffy: a great stress to build endurance.
Rob Simmelkjaer: So it's interesting. I mean that really tells me that
Rob Simmelkjaer: as we go through these summers, and we all have
Rob Simmelkjaer: our programs that our coaches have given us or our
Rob Simmelkjaer: app is giving us, and maybe you're running five days
Rob Simmelkjaer: a week and you get that one day that's just
Rob Simmelkjaer: crazy hot, crazy humid. The temptation for so many of
Rob Simmelkjaer: us is to go indoors, get on a treadmill. Now there
Rob Simmelkjaer: are days where you just have to do that, right?
Rob Simmelkjaer: But it sounds like if you can, what you're really
Rob Simmelkjaer: saying is go out in those days and get some
Rob Simmelkjaer: miles in because that's going to help your body get
Rob Simmelkjaer: ready for whatever may come on marathon day.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Yeah. I think every runner is different, and a lot
Dr. Eamon Duffy: of it is your experience and knowing your body. I
Dr. Eamon Duffy: would say if you're more of a novice runner just
Dr. Eamon Duffy: getting into marathoning, just getting into longer distance running, you
Dr. Eamon Duffy: don't want to jump out on a 90- degree day
Dr. Eamon Duffy: and go do a hard workout necessarily. That's a day
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to be on the treadmill or to run early in
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the morning, late at night, find the shadier paths in
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Central Park. A lot of people do their workouts on
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the bridal path. There's just a little bit more shade. But
Dr. Eamon Duffy: in general, Central Park is so well- shaded. For the more experienced
Dr. Eamon Duffy: runners, you've done a number of marathons, you are doing
Dr. Eamon Duffy: higher mileage. I think it's reasonable. It's all relative. 70, 80
Dr. Eamon Duffy: degree day is fine. 90, 100, no matter what, you've
Dr. Eamon Duffy: got to be careful. And people talk about the dew
Dr. Eamon Duffy: point a little bit. I think we'll get into that.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: That's sort of a combination of temperature plus humidity, and
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that can be helpful. It also depends on what marathon
Dr. Eamon Duffy: you're training for. If you're going for one of the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: warmer marathons, I haven't run Sydney, then you want to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: do more of that heat acclimation training. If you have
Dr. Eamon Duffy: a late fall winter marathon, maybe that's less of a
Dr. Eamon Duffy: priority. So it's all about who the individual runner is.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: But for more novice runners, masters runners, then you want
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to be more careful. Yesterday I saw a 24- year-
Dr. Eamon Duffy: old guy just sprint by me up the hill. I
Dr. Eamon Duffy: was like, man, it'd be great to be 24 again and just be able to take off on
Dr. Eamon Duffy: a hot day. And he was really booking it, had
Dr. Eamon Duffy: his gels. We all wish we could still be there
Dr. Eamon Duffy: and that's just how it goes. And I'm happy for
Dr. Eamon Duffy: him as he sprints by, but that's not for everyone
Dr. Eamon Duffy: all the time.
Becs Gentry: No. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, rewind sometimes. You touched on it there, but
Becs Gentry: let's talk about that difference between hot, dry heat, not just
Becs Gentry: hot, dry heat, but there's so many different types of
Becs Gentry: hot heat. And obviously New York Road Runners, we are talking to
Becs Gentry: predominantly a New York/ East Coast based audience who run
Becs Gentry: with us. However, our listeners may be based everywhere. So
Becs Gentry: I think one of the most dangerous and un- talked about--
Becs Gentry: that's really good English, Rebecca-- under- discussed conversations here is
Becs Gentry: about humidity and dew points because it's great to see
Becs Gentry: numbers, but what do they mean? Dr. Duffy, why is
Becs Gentry: humidity so much more dangerous than just that hot temperature alone?
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Yeah. Basically, humidity makes it so that way sweating is
Dr. Eamon Duffy: not as effective at cooling down your body is how
Dr. Eamon Duffy: I would sum it up. People think like, " Oh, I
Dr. Eamon Duffy: have so much sweat on me," that doesn't necessarily mean
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that you've effectively cooled down. The cooling takes place when
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the water that's on your skin evaporates off into the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: air. That is the process that you want to occur
Dr. Eamon Duffy: at all times while you're exercising. When it becomes humid,
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the amount of water in the air is so great
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that it's not pulling the water off of your body
Dr. Eamon Duffy: at the same rate. It's all about that evaporation. That's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the key. And so if it's humid, the water's not
Dr. Eamon Duffy: evaporating and it's the evaporation that pulls heat out of
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the skin, and in doing so cools you down and
Dr. Eamon Duffy: cools down the blood that's circulating just below the surface.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: So that's why humidity can be so tough even at
Dr. Eamon Duffy: cooler temperatures because you can't sweat as efficiently as you
Dr. Eamon Duffy: do when the humidity is not there or if you
Dr. Eamon Duffy: live in parts of the country where it's not as
Dr. Eamon Duffy: big of an issue. But in New York City, the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Northeast, certainly down in DC, I've spent a few summers
Dr. Eamon Duffy: down there, brutal. And so you can be tricked because
Dr. Eamon Duffy: it might be in the 70s, 80s. But if it's humid, that's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: as tough as running in the 90s on a dry day.
Becs Gentry: Yeah. And that's a really good point to make that
Becs Gentry: it doesn't necessarily have to be hot out, dangerously hot out
Becs Gentry: for the humidity to get you. Yeah, I've definitely experienced one or two of those.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Dr. Duffy, staying on this a little, we all have days that
Rob Simmelkjaer: are hard and then there's a line. There's a line where hard becomes dangerous. And I think about this all
Rob Simmelkjaer: the time at New York Road Runners because I've had
Rob Simmelkjaer: the experience of going into our medical tents at half
Rob Simmelkjaer: marathons and marathons and seeing what happens when unfortunately someone
Rob Simmelkjaer: goes over the line. You see people who are dunked
Rob Simmelkjaer: in tubs of ice water to get their core temperature
Rob Simmelkjaer: down. I've seen people come into those tents with temperatures
Rob Simmelkjaer: of 107, 108, kind of scary and have to be literally
Rob Simmelkjaer: dunked in ice to be cooled back down and more
Rob Simmelkjaer: serious problems have occurred from there as well. So what's
Rob Simmelkjaer: that line and how can a runner know the line?
Rob Simmelkjaer: What are the things, the signs, the data even in
Rob Simmelkjaer: the middle of a run that a runner can look
Rob Simmelkjaer: at and say, " All right, I need to back off"?
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Yeah, I would say the heart rate is a key.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: I bring up heart rate a little bit. I have
Dr. Eamon Duffy: sort of split feelings about it, and it's hard to say
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that as a cardiologist. But on the one hand, I
Dr. Eamon Duffy: tell runners don't focus on your heart rate too much
Dr. Eamon Duffy: over the summer. It's going to be higher. There's no
Dr. Eamon Duffy: point in stressing about it. Let your heart rate do
Dr. Eamon Duffy: what it's going to do through the summer. You want
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to dial in your heart rate in September, October leading
Dr. Eamon Duffy: into these marathons. That being said, if your heart rate's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: super high, the heart rate is kind of the odometer
Dr. Eamon Duffy: in a car when the RPMs are rising. So if it's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: super high, that's your body saying, " Hey, you're working really
Dr. Eamon Duffy: hard right now." And the human body can't sustain those
Dr. Eamon Duffy: really high efforts for a really long period of time.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: At the highest heart rates, it's like 30 minutes for
Dr. Eamon Duffy: most people. So I'd say heart rate, maybe. Don't track
Dr. Eamon Duffy: it too hard during the summer. I'd say any new
Dr. Eamon Duffy: feelings while you're running, as weird as that sounds, we've
Dr. Eamon Duffy: all been there. I think back to a marathon I
Dr. Eamon Duffy: had a few years ago where I was running, and
Dr. Eamon Duffy: it was just like I haven't really felt this bad
Dr. Eamon Duffy: before, that's a bad sign. If you're really feeling beat
Dr. Eamon Duffy: up, tired, and it's not usually the legs, it's like
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the whole body experiences it. It's your whole body rejecting
Dr. Eamon Duffy: what's going on.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Sounds like the 2025 Bank of America Chicago Marathon for
Rob Simmelkjaer: this guy.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. For me, it was New York maybe
Dr. Eamon Duffy: three or four years ago, really hot day. Brutal. Brutal. The
Dr. Eamon Duffy: other piece of advice I would give is people talk
Dr. Eamon Duffy: about a lot about PRs and getting their best times.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: You're not going to PR during the summer for the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: most part in these hot days. You're not going to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: PR on a hot day a lot of the times.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: And then big picture things, if you're feeling dizzy, as
Dr. Eamon Duffy: a cardiologist, chest discomfort, obviously that's very rare. But those
Dr. Eamon Duffy: sorts of symptoms, if you feel lightheaded, things like that,
Dr. Eamon Duffy: slow down. Stop running, rest, end the run for the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: day if you have any of those sorts of symptoms.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: The line is going to be different. There's not one
Dr. Eamon Duffy: thing and everyone's trying to push that line and that's how
Dr. Eamon Duffy: you train and build endurance. But certainly there's a point
Dr. Eamon Duffy: at which point it becomes unsafe. And your heart rate's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: one way, but your body will tell you. Your body
Dr. Eamon Duffy: will absolutely tell you that, " Hey, this is too hard."
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Whether it's lactate building up, that's what's going on at
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the cellular level. But at the big picture level, your
Dr. Eamon Duffy: body's going to tell you that you're pushing it too
Dr. Eamon Duffy: hard and you just have to listen to your body.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: And that's what I love so much about taking care
Dr. Eamon Duffy: of runners is that they're very in tune with their
Dr. Eamon Duffy: bodies. And that's part of learning to become an experienced
Dr. Eamon Duffy: runner. You know what feels normal, what feels abnormal. And
Dr. Eamon Duffy: when you start having those, whether it's GI discomfort or
Dr. Eamon Duffy: just fatigue, things like that, you can feel it. Everything's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: hurting. Your body's telling you to slow down. Don't try
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to push through that. You will not be able to.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: There is no, " Oh, I feel horrible now, but if
Dr. Eamon Duffy: I just keep running at this pace, it's going to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: go away." And that's not a thing really. Truly elite
Dr. Eamon Duffy: runners, professionals, you hear about like, " Oh, I felt bad
Dr. Eamon Duffy: and then I kind of ran through it and I
Dr. Eamon Duffy: got used to it," at that level, maybe. But for
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the vast majority of people, if you're feeling bad, it's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: only going to get worse. It doesn't really get much
Dr. Eamon Duffy: better. You can hydrate, slow down and feel better that
Dr. Eamon Duffy: way, but it's not going to feel better just by
Dr. Eamon Duffy: continuing at this same pace because your body is telling you, "
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Hey, I can't tolerate this for long periods of time."
Rob Simmelkjaer: It's funny, you mentioned the elites. And Becs, you can relate to
Rob Simmelkjaer: this. Even the elites can only push through so much.
Rob Simmelkjaer: And you see elites, Becs, you know this. They actually
Rob Simmelkjaer: have a higher DNF rate, a lot of them than
Rob Simmelkjaer: your normal runners do. Because they're like, " Wait a second.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I've got to run at the incredible elite pace I've got to
Rob Simmelkjaer: run at to do this. And it's not happening for me.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I am not feeling this." Yeah, they could pull off
Rob Simmelkjaer: and run a much slower time than normal, but a
Rob Simmelkjaer: lot of them are just like, " I can't do this today. I'm out."
Rob Simmelkjaer: And they just drop out. You see it all the time.
Becs Gentry: They're so in tune with their bodies as well. They're so
Becs Gentry: in tune with their bodies. They know the second it starts to feel, like
Becs Gentry: Dr. Duffy said, just everything is rejecting this workout. I'm
Becs Gentry: not going to bother pushing my body any further because
Becs Gentry: it's going to be to my detriment for days and
Becs Gentry: days and days thereafter. So quit while you're ahead.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Yeah, exactly.
Becs Gentry: But I love what you said. Sometimes you can just
Becs Gentry: hydrate, slow down, and that brings us onto a very
Becs Gentry: wonderful segue to get to the nitty- gritty about hydration.
Becs Gentry: And we are going to lean on Dr. Roy here.
Becs Gentry: I mean, honestly, I'm just going to have to sidebar
Becs Gentry: with you for about an hour after this show because
Becs Gentry: I have so many water questions. I am such a
Becs Gentry: water snob and I love this. I love this. Okay.
Becs Gentry: So taste. Water taste. I will not drink New York
Becs Gentry: tap water. Weirdly, everyone says, " Oh my God, it's so wonderful." I'm like, "
Becs Gentry: You guys are just messed up."
Rob Simmelkjaer: Best tap water in the world right here in New York City.
Becs Gentry: No, it's disgusting. It's disgusting. It tastes like iron.
Rob Simmelkjaer: We used to call it Eau de Bloomberg back in
Rob Simmelkjaer: the day. Now I guess we have to call it Eau de Mamdani. But yes, it's New York's finest.
Becs Gentry: Eau de yuck. And I do personally feel like taste
Becs Gentry: is a big driver on whether people actually drink full
Becs Gentry: stop or drink enough. So let's talk about that. Is
Becs Gentry: there a risk in assuming that if water tastes fine,
Becs Gentry: it is fine? But then talk to us about the
Becs Gentry: properties of water and what it needs to be fine.
Dr. Eric Roy: Well, yeah. Okay. So great question. Taste is a call- out. It's a
Dr. Eric Roy: huge thing to worry about, especially for athletes. Because as
Dr. Eric Roy: you called out before, if the water doesn't taste right,
Dr. Eric Roy: you're not going to consume it. And if that blows
Dr. Eric Roy: up a training session, that's not good. And if that
Dr. Eric Roy: blows up your race day, that's even worse. So that
Dr. Eric Roy: is a huge thing that we focus on. But one
Dr. Eric Roy: of the things that a lot of people don't really
Dr. Eric Roy: think about is what about the things that have no
Dr. Eric Roy: taste? So if you look at water quality, the contaminants
Dr. Eric Roy: that aren't great for you, so like lead, forever chemicals,
Dr. Eric Roy: arsenic, things like that, those chemicals don't have any taste
Dr. Eric Roy: in the water. And when you look at runners and
Dr. Eric Roy: athletes in general, we're consuming multiples of the amount of
Dr. Eric Roy: water that the normal person does. And remembering that the
Dr. Eric Roy: toxicology limits that go into regulations and things like that
Dr. Eric Roy: are based off normal usage. So that's how we think
Dr. Eric Roy: about the water that we drink every day, especially as
Dr. Eric Roy: athletes. On the taste side, it's just going back to
Dr. Eric Roy: the athlete. If you're not consuming water during the race
Dr. Eric Roy: or on your training run, it's not going to go
Dr. Eric Roy: well for you. We all know that. I just remember multiple
Dr. Eric Roy: races where I was surprised by the taste of the
Dr. Eric Roy: water at the venue. I didn't come with my own.
Dr. Eric Roy: And I was coming from rural Maine at the time
Dr. Eric Roy: where I was coming off of well. So chlorine was
Dr. Eric Roy: not something that I had in my water. It's just
Dr. Eric Roy: how it is. So I remember very vividly it was
Dr. Eric Roy: going to a race down in Massachusetts and city water
Dr. Eric Roy: is what was on the aid stations and it was
Dr. Eric Roy: a self- supported race. So you were drinking from the
Dr. Eric Roy: venue and I just remember my consumption was low and
Dr. Eric Roy: I cracked. And it was one of those, it was too
Dr. Eric Roy: short of a race for me to back off and
Dr. Eric Roy: recover. So when you think about taste, it's both everyday
Dr. Eric Roy: life. But as athletes, especially on race day, that's the
Dr. Eric Roy: thing where you don't want to be surprised on race day.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I've been there. I've run events as well where yeah,
Rob Simmelkjaer: the water taste just surprised and disgusted me in a
Rob Simmelkjaer: couple cases and that's not a good place to be.
Dr. Eric Roy: It's not a good place to be.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Because now you got to force yourself to drink this
Rob Simmelkjaer: water. You don't want to. You probably end up switching
Rob Simmelkjaer: more to sports drinks in that situation, which we'll get
Rob Simmelkjaer: to. Maybe that's okay, but maybe it's a thing you
Rob Simmelkjaer: can control or test for if it's a race that
Rob Simmelkjaer: you're allowed to bring your own water. So Dr. Roy,
Rob Simmelkjaer: what are your thoughts about bringing your own water into
Rob Simmelkjaer: a race? Do you recommend that? Does it depend?
Dr. Eric Roy: I personally recommend on controlling the controllables on race day.
Dr. Eric Roy: I was someone that responded poorly to surprises, so I
Dr. Eric Roy: liked my own water in my own bottles and things
Dr. Eric Roy: like that. There were races that we had where we
Dr. Eric Roy: had a sponsor that was making the water very neutral
Dr. Eric Roy: and something that didn't taste bad, and that was a
Dr. Eric Roy: welcome treat obviously. So that was something that was a
Dr. Eric Roy: good thing, but I'm a big fan of just controlling
Dr. Eric Roy: those controllables on race day.
Becs Gentry: Let's talk about tap water really. And I mean, I
Becs Gentry: get it, whatever. Maybe it's just my filter at home
Becs Gentry: that's terrible. I don't have a filter, my tap. But
Becs Gentry: what is one of the key things that you have
Becs Gentry: found over your years of study that people are missing
Becs Gentry: in their at- home drinking water?
Dr. Eric Roy: Oh, it's this belief that if your water tastes good,
Dr. Eric Roy: it's good to go. And again, you go back to those priority contaminants like lead. I mean, we
Dr. Eric Roy: all talked a little bit earlier in the intro about
Dr. Eric Roy: Flint. Lead is something that is very detrimental to health,
Dr. Eric Roy: especially for children, and there's no taste to it. You
Dr. Eric Roy: don't know. And the thing that's difficult about lead is
Dr. Eric Roy: lead doesn't come from the source water itself. It comes
Dr. Eric Roy: from your home's plumbing. So if you have an older
Dr. Eric Roy: home with older plumbing, that's how lead actually enters the
Dr. Eric Roy: water. So that is a huge misconception whenever we're talking
Dr. Eric Roy: to people about water quality. The other ones are the
Dr. Eric Roy: types of contaminants that can pollute a water supply. Those
Dr. Eric Roy: are things you're starting to see it more in the
Dr. Eric Roy: news now, but things like microplastics and PFAS, sometimes those are
Dr. Eric Roy: referred to as forever chemicals. Those are things that have
Dr. Eric Roy: no taste as well. And then there's a third bucket
Dr. Eric Roy: of contaminants that are things that are naturally found in
Dr. Eric Roy: nature. These are things like arsenic. Arsenic doesn't generally come
Dr. Eric Roy: from contaminated tap water, from pollution or anything like that,
Dr. Eric Roy: it comes from the geology. All of those things, none
Dr. Eric Roy: of them have any taste and people, they start to
Dr. Eric Roy: get some complacency when it comes to it. They use
Dr. Eric Roy: their tongue as the only sensor, the only detection mechanism.
Dr. Eric Roy: And it's one of those things where when they finally
Dr. Eric Roy: do get their water tested, they're surprised by the results.
Dr. Eric Roy: So that's not a great thing.
Rob Simmelkjaer: So Dr. Roy, we're talking to an audience right now
Rob Simmelkjaer: that is probably planning on consuming a lot of water
Rob Simmelkjaer: over the next few months as they train for fall
Rob Simmelkjaer: races. They're in all kinds of different places with all
Rob Simmelkjaer: kinds of different water systems in their communities. What's your one- size- fits-
Rob Simmelkjaer: all recommendation to people when it comes to what water
Rob Simmelkjaer: to drink, not knowing where they're coming? Should they all
Rob Simmelkjaer: get their water tested? Should they all be drinking bottled
Rob Simmelkjaer: water during their training blocks?
Dr. Eric Roy: Sure. So I guess the one- size- fits- all knowledge
Dr. Eric Roy: I would give, and I realize it's a cop out,
Dr. Eric Roy: is understand what's in your water. So if you're on
Dr. Eric Roy: a city, the city will provide data for you on
Dr. Eric Roy: that. If you're on a private well, you are responsible
Dr. Eric Roy: for both testing and treating your water. So understanding what's
Dr. Eric Roy: in your water is the first thing. That's step one.
Dr. Eric Roy: Step two is understanding like, " Okay, I'm noticing these problems
Dr. Eric Roy: with my water. Maybe the contaminants aren't found at illegal
Dr. Eric Roy: levels, but maybe they're at non- optimal levels. They're above
Dr. Eric Roy: the health- only targets but they're still legal to drink."
Dr. Eric Roy: Those are instances where a lot of people are taking
Dr. Eric Roy: a step and actually getting a product to filter the
Dr. Eric Roy: water in their home. And in order to do that,
Dr. Eric Roy: you need to know what you're protecting against. So step
Dr. Eric Roy: one is understanding what's in your water.
Becs Gentry: It's kind of crazy. My mind is now in that level
Becs Gentry: of conspiracy in a weird way of like, we're not
Becs Gentry: going to go into that right now at all. But you live in
Becs Gentry: a city and yes, the city has to give you
Becs Gentry: the numbers of what's in your water, but at the
Becs Gentry: same time, is it right? And coupling that with, as
Becs Gentry: you said, old buildings. New York is full of old
Becs Gentry: buildings. I live in Brooklyn. There are all of these
Becs Gentry: old townhouses that are crumbly walls and yes, the pipes
Becs Gentry: are terrible. But we don't do much about it. We just
Becs Gentry: get our water filters and we use those and keep
Becs Gentry: our fingers crossed that it's doing the right thing. When
Becs Gentry: it comes to, let's say, enhancing the water that you
Becs Gentry: have at home, you're doing your very best, what do
Becs Gentry: you think about putting things like those electrolyte powders in
Becs Gentry: to help boost what you've got at home?
Dr. Eric Roy: Oh, those can be great things as athletes. We understand
Dr. Eric Roy: ourselves a lot. I think a couple of us have
Dr. Eric Roy: talked about how we sweat a lot. And when you're
Dr. Eric Roy: thinking about those types of things, I always leaned on
Dr. Eric Roy: my coach and my doctor to help me figure out
Dr. Eric Roy: exactly what electrolytes and what kind of balance I needed
Dr. Eric Roy: in my water. So I am a huge advocate of
Dr. Eric Roy: that, but it's so individualized in my experience that I
Dr. Eric Roy: don't want to give general guidance here on that. That's
Dr. Eric Roy: something that you really want to work with your coach.
Dr. Eric Roy: And if you're working with a performance doctor, that's a
Dr. Eric Roy: great conversation to have to make sure that you're getting
Dr. Eric Roy: the electrolytes you need.
Becs Gentry: Yeah. But it doesn't delete potentially bad water. You know
Becs Gentry: what I'm saying? It can help to a physical element per your
Becs Gentry: doctor physician's guidelines. But yeah, you still need to do
Becs Gentry: your own research as you say, understand where your water's
Becs Gentry: coming from and then couple it-
Dr. Eric Roy: There's the things you want in your water, which are
Dr. Eric Roy: the electrolytes and the things you don't want in your
Dr. Eric Roy: water. The product that you have in your home, that's
Dr. Eric Roy: going to delete the things that you don't want in
Dr. Eric Roy: your water. And then you can add back the things
Dr. Eric Roy: that are going to get you to your optimal performance level.
Becs Gentry: Yeah.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Yeah. And let's maybe talk a bit more about electrolytes
Rob Simmelkjaer: and actually may go back to Dr. Duffy for this.
Rob Simmelkjaer: We talked about the role that sweating plays and humidity
Rob Simmelkjaer: and how that makes it less effective. Let's talk about,
Rob Simmelkjaer: we all know sweat is salty. For some, more salty
Rob Simmelkjaer: than others, but those are the electrolytes that are leaving
Rob Simmelkjaer: your body, the sodium that's coming out as you sweat.
Rob Simmelkjaer: So let's talk about the importance of replacing that sodium
Rob Simmelkjaer: and of course some of the consequences that can come
Rob Simmelkjaer: from not doing that, which we've seen tragically in some
Rob Simmelkjaer: endurance events.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: Yeah, I would say just like Dr. Roy mentioned, it's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: individualized for each person and it's hard to give broad
Dr. Eamon Duffy: guidance about electrolytes. But I would say during the summer
Dr. Eamon Duffy: months, don't hesitate to put those electrolyte gels or the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: supplements into the water because you do know you're going
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to be losing a lot more of it. The way
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that the body pulls water out in some ways is
Dr. Eamon Duffy: like water and salt travel together. They pull one another
Dr. Eamon Duffy: out onto the skin and so you're losing salt. And
Dr. Eamon Duffy: salt also helps keep the circulating blood volume within the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: vasculature to some degree and keeps it moving in the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: right direction towards those muscles. And so you want to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: have enough salt circulating to help do that. So I
Dr. Eamon Duffy: would say it's hard to know how much each person
Dr. Eamon Duffy: needs. A lot of it is kind of trial and
Dr. Eamon Duffy: error. People sometimes come to me saying, " Hey, I want
Dr. Eamon Duffy: to do a sweat test, salt test," all that sort
Dr. Eamon Duffy: of stuff. And I say, " We can do those things,
Dr. Eamon Duffy: but really it's trial and error." And that's part of
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the fun of being an endurance athlete and the chess
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that goes into all of this is let's try some
Dr. Eamon Duffy: electrolytes this weekend on your long run. See if you
Dr. Eamon Duffy: feel better. Oh, I do feel better. All right, let's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: keep it going. That's all it is. There's no magic
Dr. Eamon Duffy: formula that we plug in. It's just trying different things
Dr. Eamon Duffy: and some people need more electrolytes than others. And if
Dr. Eamon Duffy: it benefits you, you feel better, keep going, keeping in
Dr. Eamon Duffy: mind that on those hotter days you're going to be
Dr. Eamon Duffy: losing more salt. And everybody should be taking in those
Dr. Eamon Duffy: electrolyte tabs, which have really become much more accessible and
Dr. Eamon Duffy: people are more aware of it, that it's not just
Dr. Eamon Duffy: necessarily water that you should be taking in but electrolytes
Dr. Eamon Duffy: with it. And New York Road Runners does such a great
Dr. Eamon Duffy: job of providing a lot of this stuff on race
Dr. Eamon Duffy: day at the sessions. It's not just water. There's Gatorade
Dr. Eamon Duffy: there. I forget if it's Gatorade, but there are sports
Dr. Eamon Duffy: drinks at a lot of them. The gels now combine,
Dr. Eamon Duffy: it's not just carbs, but carbs plus sodium. If you're
Dr. Eamon Duffy: taking bicarb, which a lot of serious runners are now
Dr. Eamon Duffy: taking, the bicarb comes with a lot of sodium as well.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: So make sure you're factoring that in, that if you're
Dr. Eamon Duffy: taking bicarb before a race, and again, this is experienced
Dr. Eamon Duffy: runners, you're getting a big sodium load to start. So
Dr. Eamon Duffy: just know what's in, as Dr. Roy said, all of the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: supplements you're taking. Read the labels, plug them into ChatGPT,
Dr. Eamon Duffy: whatever it is that you use and educate yourself. And
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that's part of the fun. This is all meant to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: be enjoyable learning experience, and you're kind of altering the
Dr. Eamon Duffy: gears in your body to optimize performance. And electrolytes are a
Dr. Eamon Duffy: key part of that.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I'd love to say that I planned to be drinking
Rob Simmelkjaer: from a Maurten water bottle during this podcast, but it
Rob Simmelkjaer: just happened to be the one nearest my desk here. So I just grabbed it.
Rob Simmelkjaer: But yes, we do provide a lot. It is Gatorade as well
Rob Simmelkjaer: as Maurten Gel. And yeah, it's a key. So I think that
Rob Simmelkjaer: trial and error is the right answer. And you do that
Rob Simmelkjaer: during your training block, during your summer. You get to
Rob Simmelkjaer: know what works, what doesn't work. Dr. Roy, anything else
Rob Simmelkjaer: you want to add in terms of what people should
Rob Simmelkjaer: be looking for maybe when they look at some of
Rob Simmelkjaer: these salt tabs and other products that provide some of
Rob Simmelkjaer: the sodium that's needed?
Dr. Eric Roy: Yeah, it's the sodium and it's the minerals. So just
Dr. Eric Roy: making sure it's high quality. And the big thing is
Dr. Eric Roy: just palatability. That's been my experience both as a scientist
Dr. Eric Roy: and as an athlete as well is if it doesn't
Dr. Eric Roy: taste good, you're going to look for excuses not to
Dr. Eric Roy: consume it. And we all know where that leads. And
Dr. Eric Roy: like Dr. Duffy said, it is about experimentation.
Rob Simmelkjaer: All right. Well, let's transition to maybe the hardest part
Rob Simmelkjaer: of this entire summer running thing, the actual running and
Rob Simmelkjaer: the training that we all have to go through in
Rob Simmelkjaer: these blocks. Coach Ben Delaney, let's start with I guess
Rob Simmelkjaer: the philosophy that we use at New York Road Runners
Rob Simmelkjaer: on our group training runs and in our long runs
Rob Simmelkjaer: with Team for Kids and all the places where we
Rob Simmelkjaer: are training runners, which is training by effort and not
Rob Simmelkjaer: by pace. And I will tell you that when I
Rob Simmelkjaer: first started running with you guys in group training, it
Rob Simmelkjaer: took me a while to get my head around that
Rob Simmelkjaer: because I think about a pace. I'm like, " Well, wait
Rob Simmelkjaer: a second. We're going to run here today. What pace
Rob Simmelkjaer: is this group running? You got to be running... What
Rob Simmelkjaer: should I be doing? Should I be doing seven, eight, nine-
Rob Simmelkjaer: minute miles?" And you guys always bring it back to
Rob Simmelkjaer: the effort level. What does that mean in practice and why?
Ben Delaney: Yeah, it is kind of an interesting concept to think about and to wrap
Ben Delaney: your head around does take time. And the simplest thing
Ben Delaney: that I use as a coach when someone comes to
Ben Delaney: me, I say, " You use the talk test. Can you
Ben Delaney: talk and how much can you talk while you're doing
Ben Delaney: the effort?" Dr. Duffy touched on it earlier when you saw
Ben Delaney: a 24- year- old running up the hill doing certain
Ben Delaney: things. Now everyone is going to be in a different
Ben Delaney: space when they're there, and maybe you're a better summer
Ben Delaney: runner or a better winter runner. So it goes down
Ben Delaney: to each individualized. But when we look at effort- based,
Ben Delaney: I use a talk test. And when we look at
Ben Delaney: a marathon training plan, when 80 to 85% of your running should
Ben Delaney: be at what we consider a conversational pace, you should
Ben Delaney: be able to not quite do exactly what we're doing
Ben Delaney: here, but you should be able to have a conversation
Ben Delaney: to a certain extent for the bulk of your training.
Ben Delaney: It's those other 15, 20% where yeah, you got to work
Ben Delaney: harder and you're going to do that. So I tell people
Ben Delaney: when you first start, just how much can you talk?
Ben Delaney: And I always make the joke, it's New York. Talk
Ben Delaney: to yourself. Nobody will think differently. It's okay. It's New York. We
Ben Delaney: all talk to ourselves here. But really you do that. I
Ben Delaney: was actually running with somebody with Team for Kids this
Ben Delaney: past weekend. They had come to our first workouts, or
Ben Delaney: they actually came to their first. We'd been running for
Ben Delaney: a while and they were not really sure. And I
Ben Delaney: went up to them, I tried to have a conversation
Ben Delaney: and they could not. So I knew immediately that they
Ben Delaney: were working way too hard for what they wanted to
Ben Delaney: be at. And they were like, " Well, my heart rate says
Ben Delaney: this." I'm like, " Yeah, but I'm asking you how you're
Ben Delaney: doing." And you're saying, " I'm doing fine." I'm like, " We
Ben Delaney: should be at a conversational long run pace today. This should
Ben Delaney: not be tough." So I simply backed them off of
Ben Delaney: the pace that they were running. We went from, I
Ben Delaney: think we're like a high nine to a mid- 10
Ben Delaney: to a high 10, and all of a sudden, bam, they were
Ben Delaney: much more comfortable and they were able to sustain the
Ben Delaney: effort. I say effort, not the pace because Dr. Duffy
Ben Delaney: touched on earlier, we get wrapped up in our paces
Ben Delaney: and everything. And it's like, yeah, we know what we want to
Ben Delaney: do at our marathon, but right now in the summertime, it's
Ben Delaney: a reset. It's a mental reset to say, hold on,
Ben Delaney: I know what I want to do. But if I
Ben Delaney: can put in the effort, I'm going to make the
Ben Delaney: physical and physiological gains that are going to help me
Ben Delaney: down the road. But I also have to remember I may
Ben Delaney: have a run tomorrow. I may have a run in
Ben Delaney: two days. I've got other speed work. I may only
Ben Delaney: be in the first four weeks of a 16- week training plan.
Ben Delaney: And you want to get to the start line healthy.
Ben Delaney: You want to get to the start line ready to
Ben Delaney: run the race that you trained for. And if you over-
Ben Delaney: train and it's so easy to overtrain and overwork and make
Ben Delaney: up miles and do all the wrong things, that if
Ben Delaney: you just do too much too early and don't focus
Ben Delaney: on the things and your body is telling you something, you just have
Ben Delaney: to listen to it. And when you do, then you
Ben Delaney: begin to reset, readjust, and then it's like, okay, now
Ben Delaney: I get this. And that's really what we preach in
Ben Delaney: New York Road Runners training is, hey, look, you're putting
Ben Delaney: in the work, but don't put in so much work
Ben Delaney: that you're setting yourself back for later on in your training
Ben Delaney: because you want to feel as good as you do
Ben Delaney: in July, as tough as it can be. When you get
Ben Delaney: to September, October, you still want to have other gears
Ben Delaney: to go with and to be able to do what
Ben Delaney: you need to, to then get to the taper, to get to the
Ben Delaney: start line in Staten Island, to then run the best 26.
Ben Delaney: 2 miles the world's ever seen.
Becs Gentry: Yeah. Agreed. I love the effort, not pace. I think
Becs Gentry: that's a huge message for everyone running, not just in
Becs Gentry: summer I think throughout the year. I think we definitely
Becs Gentry: are so, so distracted by the numerical side of running,
Becs Gentry: how far, how fast, how often that we forget, okay,
Becs Gentry: the vast majority of us are not professional athletes. We are
Becs Gentry: doing it as a hobby. And as Dr. Duffy said,
Becs Gentry: it's supposed to be fun. Your hobbies are supposed to
Becs Gentry: be something that fills you with joy and happiness and
Becs Gentry: not something that you dread and makes you feel really
Becs Gentry: bad about yourself and lack confidence over. So I like
Becs Gentry: that effort. Yeah, can I chat with my friends? Can
Becs Gentry: I use this as a social hour, my long run?
Becs Gentry: Perfect. That's what it's supposed to be.
Rob Simmelkjaer: The effort level also can make sense that it's variable.
Rob Simmelkjaer: I guess that's one of the things that makes it
Rob Simmelkjaer: great for summer running is your 60% effort may be
Rob Simmelkjaer: one pace when it's 60 degrees and it's going to
Rob Simmelkjaer: be a very different pace when it's 80 degrees.
Ben Delaney: And Dr. Duffy talked about earlier, humidity is a huge
Ben Delaney: factor in that. I mean, 2025 United Airlines NYC Half,
Ben Delaney: the first time we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, we had
Ben Delaney: a cool day, but man, it was foggy and we
Ben Delaney: had humidity. And people were like, whoa. And we come out of a winter training cycle into
Ben Delaney: what technically would've been the warmest, but the most humid
Ben Delaney: day that we had. So all of a sudden, if your half-
Ben Delaney: marathon effort is a seven or seven and a half, on a scale
Ben Delaney: of one to 10, that's going to feel really hard
Ben Delaney: because all of a sudden I've come out of this winter
Ben Delaney: training when it's been in the 20s or 30s, maybe
Ben Delaney: the 40- degree mark. All of sudden I hit a mid-
Ben Delaney: 40 to a low 50, but 90% humidity. Now I'm
Ben Delaney: running at a tank top in shorts, not long sleeves,
Ben Delaney: jackets, gloves, hats, and I'm sweating profusely. And maybe I
Ben Delaney: haven't done the things like Dr. Roy said, haven't done
Ben Delaney: the hydration stuff during the winter months because I may
Ben Delaney: not be sweating as much, so I don't have to
Ben Delaney: drink as much water. False, big false right there, everybody.
Ben Delaney: You still have to drink even when it's cold, you
Ben Delaney: have to be hydrated all the time. I remember a
Ben Delaney: lot of runners, I paced a two- hour group for
Ben Delaney: that race and there were runners that were really struggling.
Ben Delaney: We got to the 15K mark as you come off the
Ben Delaney: FDR past the UN, up in the Times Square where
Ben Delaney: you should be having all the energy, that 5K race
Ben Delaney: in you, and runners really struggled. So humidity is such
Ben Delaney: a factor in that. And so as we talk about rate of perceived
Ben Delaney: exertion, the RPE, think about it from one to 10,
Ben Delaney: five being your mid- range, level four to five should
Ben Delaney: be your comfortable long run pace. Level six, we sometimes
Ben Delaney: put that around that marathon effort. Seven, seven and a
Ben Delaney: half, okay, now we're in the half- marathon effort range.
Ben Delaney: Eight, 10K, 5K, eight and a half. Nine's your mile.
Ben Delaney: 10 is an all- out sprint for all of us who
Ben Delaney: want to be Usain Bolt, out in the world or
Ben Delaney: any of our sprinters out there. But that's how you
Ben Delaney: can kind of look at that, but it is variable
Ben Delaney: based on time of year. And again, it's how you
Ben Delaney: look at it. And we talked about heart rate earlier.
Ben Delaney: If we're using a wrist rate, it may not be
Ben Delaney: as accurate as you think. The chest strap is going
Ben Delaney: to be your most accurate piece of information you're going
Ben Delaney: to get, but so many things will factor into heart rate--
Ben Delaney: coffee, lack of sleep, if you have kids. I have
Ben Delaney: a 21- year- old, love the kid to death, but
Ben Delaney: sometimes he makes me want to pull my hair out
Ben Delaney: what's left of it. But it's all the factors of
Ben Delaney: life will impact your heart rate. So again, if we talk
Ben Delaney: about the effort level, how much can you talk, when
Ben Delaney: can you talk, and at different points of your workout.
Ben Delaney: Hey, it all feels good at mile one. Let's be
Ben Delaney: a hundred percent honest. But if I'm in a two-
Ben Delaney: hour run or a 10- mile run, whatever I may
Ben Delaney: be doing, am I still feeling as comfortable or as
Ben Delaney: good at mile eight or nine or 90 or so
Ben Delaney: minutes into my run? That should be a good telling
Ben Delaney: factor of how hard you have worked because remember, it's
Ben Delaney: not one run that's going to make your race. It's
Ben Delaney: the volume of work that's going to prepare you for
Ben Delaney: your start line.
Becs Gentry: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Oh my gosh, have
Becs Gentry: so much information here to digest and to take away.
Becs Gentry: As we said, I don't know. I'm not a meteorologist,
Becs Gentry: but it feels like we're not even halfway through summer
Becs Gentry: here in New York right now. But we have already
Becs Gentry: had so many days where just walking the dog around
Becs Gentry: the block has felt like a 10- mile run on
Becs Gentry: some days. So hopefully our listeners have taken your advice,
Becs Gentry: your words of wisdom, and a lot of words of
Becs Gentry: experience here too with them. But we're going to ask
Becs Gentry: you one more thing before we say goodbye to each
Becs Gentry: of you. After when this ends, when we're through into
Becs Gentry: autumn, when the summer training has completed itself, what is
Becs Gentry: the one thing a runner should trust about their fitness
Becs Gentry: when the weather finally breaks? I'll start with you, Ben,
Becs Gentry: as the resident coach.
Ben Delaney: Right. And I will say trust in the work that you
Ben Delaney: have done, even though maybe your runs have really been
Ben Delaney: tougher than you think, or maybe you've never hit the
Ben Delaney: marathon pace and you're like, " There is no way if
Ben Delaney: I can't hold it for five miles or 10 miles,
Ben Delaney: how am I going to hold it for 26.2?" You
Ben Delaney: have to trust that you've still made the physical, the
Ben Delaney: physiological, and the mental gains over your training. There may be
Ben Delaney: some expectation adjustment or maybe some slight adjustments for other
Ben Delaney: things. However, if you just trust in the work that
Ben Delaney: you've done and put the effort in and the time
Ben Delaney: in, you've prepared yourself for the race that you've trained
Ben Delaney: for. And that's the biggest thing. That's the best thing
Ben Delaney: and what we all want to be able to do.
Becs Gentry: Love that. All right, Dr. Roy.
Dr. Eric Roy: Big thing is enjoy it. Like Ben said, you've put
Dr. Eric Roy: in all the time. You've trained yourself to do the
Dr. Eric Roy: things that are just going to come automatically to you
Dr. Eric Roy: once the weather breaks. So just enjoy that season. I
Dr. Eric Roy: always did.
Becs Gentry: Yes, absolutely. And finally, Dr. Duffy.
Dr. Eamon Duffy: I would say keep hydrating. I think myself and a
Dr. Eamon Duffy: lot of the runners I work with under- hydrate. They
Dr. Eamon Duffy: don't drink enough water throughout the week leading up to
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that big run. Maybe in the summer months when it's
Dr. Eamon Duffy: hot, you're drinking more water and then it cools down
Dr. Eamon Duffy: and you sort of deprioritize it a little bit and think
Dr. Eamon Duffy: maybe I don't need that two liters a day now
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that it's cooler out. You still need that water. Just
Dr. Eamon Duffy: because you don't feel the sweat on you doesn't mean
Dr. Eamon Duffy: that your body doesn't need to cool down. And so
Dr. Eamon Duffy: I would say hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. There's a big focus
Dr. Eamon Duffy: right now on high carbs and gels and all of that
Dr. Eamon Duffy: stuff, but water is really the key to a lot
Dr. Eamon Duffy: of this. So hydrate, hydrate, hydrate even into the fall,
Dr. Eamon Duffy: cooler months, and you'll really reap the rewards of all of
Dr. Eamon Duffy: the hard work you put in throughout the summer.
Rob Simmelkjaer: All right.
Becs Gentry: Wonderful. Thank you.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Thank you all so much. Becs is right. We could talk about
Rob Simmelkjaer: this all day. We've talked about it in other podcasts
Rob Simmelkjaer: as well, so there's a lot of information out there.
Rob Simmelkjaer: But thanks to each of you for joining us, lending
Rob Simmelkjaer: a little bit of wisdom as our runners fight through
Rob Simmelkjaer: the summer months to get ready for fall. If that's
Rob Simmelkjaer: what they're doing, trying to run a fall marathon. Dr.
Rob Simmelkjaer: Eamon Duffy, Dr. Eric Roy, and our very own Ben
Rob Simmelkjaer: Delaney, thanks all very much.
Becs Gentry: Peloton has got something for whatever running mood you're in.
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Becs Gentry: fit into your routine with classes that help you stay
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Becs Gentry: your progress, and train smarter. We've got it all to
Becs Gentry: help you reach your goals and stay on track. Peloton,
Becs Gentry: the official digital fitness partner of New York Road Runners.
Becs Gentry: Well, that does it for another episode of Set the
Becs Gentry: Pace. Thank you so much to today's guests, Dr. Eric
Becs Gentry: Roy, Dr. Eamon Duffy, and our very own coach, Ben Delaney.
Becs Gentry: If you like this episode, please go ahead, subscribe, rate,
Becs Gentry: or leave a comment for the show on whatever platform
Becs Gentry: you're listening on. This not only helps us, but it
Becs Gentry: helps others find out about the show too. In the
Becs Gentry: meantime, stay safe out there, stay hydrated and run strong,
Becs Gentry: my friends. We'll see you soon.