ATHLETES HAVE LITTLE CHOICE BUT TO ADAPT TO CHANGING CLIMATE
Higher temperatures will have drastic effects on performance
LOVELL CANYON, NEV. It was 23 C and the early morning sun was still rising over the Mojave Desert as nearly six dozen long-distance runners gathered at the start line and anxiously watched numbers tick down on the digital clock overhead.
“Make sure that you’re staying on top of your internal hydration and your external cooling,” the race organizer said into a microphone.
The runners shook their limbs loose and bobbed in place, eager for the start. The annual race is called Running with the Devil and it takes place less than 50 kilometres from the glitzy air-conditioned casinos on the Strip in Las Vegas. The forecast called for an unseasonably cool day in the desert, but the racers — running a marathon or distances of 50, 80 or 100 kilometres — had assembled specifically for a physiological test in the heat.
The people from this area are plenty acquainted with hot summer days. Climatologists say the earth’s hottest places are getting hotter faster than everywhere else. There was a report this year that found Las Vegas is the fastest-warming city in the U.S. and has seen an average temperature increase of about 3 C since 1970.
The whole planet is getting warmer, in fact. Across the globe, the last four years are the warmest on record. Last year, the average temperature across Earth’s land and ocean surfaces was 0.7 C above the 20th-century average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and climate watchers say it’s trending in one direction. Climate projections suggest the planet could warm by 1.6 to 2.2 C by the end of this century, which would have major ramifications for outdoor sports everywhere, from recreational weekend joggers to elite athletes competing on the biggest stages.
“When you talk about climate change and you tell someone it’s a degree hotter — pfft! — that doesn’t seem like very much,” said Andrew Grundstein, a climatologist at the University of Georgia. “When I talk to my students about the difference in a couple degrees, I tell them, ‘Remember, when it was four degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler, we were in an ice age.’”
From community races to the Olympics to the World Cup, event organizers are already having to make adjustments to competition schedules and start times. And athletes around the world are having to take more precautions as science and technology evolve to help them cope with the heat — or, in some cases, gain a competitive advantage.
Events such as the Australian Open have instituted safety measures to account for extreme heat. The International Olympic Committee and FIFA have formed committees to study heat-related issues at major events. Next summer’s Olympics in humid Tokyo will feature a marathon that starts at 6 a.m.
This year’s track and field world championships are in scorching-hot Qatar, where organizers will start the marathon at midnight. The World Cup men’s soccer tournament, which usually takes place in June every four years, has been pushed back to November and December in hopes of cooler weather when Qatar hosts the event in 2022.
The Running with the Devil race, intentionally scheduled for extreme conditions, might not be an exact peek into the future, but it does highlight many of the challenges already confronting much of the sports world. How does heat affect performance? What dangers lurk on the outdoor courses and fields exposed to the summer sun? How does one stage a safe event in extreme conditions?
The racers all had a strategy and at the start line they wore long sleeves or no sleeves or no shirts, armed with backpacks, running belts and water bottles. They stared ahead at a desolate one-lane road with regular mile markers and irregular roadkill. The landscape was a blend of browns and greens with Joshua trees, rabbitbrush and Ponderosa pines lining the route, chipmunks, lizards and rabbits providing the only company.
Finally, at 7 a.m.: “Going off in five, four, three, two, one — go!” the race director said to the sound of claps and cowbells that rang out in an otherwise empty desert.
It was 35 C and sticky in Orlando, Fla., but about 17 degrees cooler inside air-conditioned Orange County Convention Center. A crowd of more than 6,000 gathered in late spring for the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the largest such gathering in the world.
Heat-related topics have become a staple of the annual meetings and about 200 people — athletic trainers, doctors, researchers, physiologists and performance coaches among them — gathered in Room 303 for a presentation focused on next summer’s Olympics.
Doug Casa, head of the Korey Stringer Institute who serves on a commission dedicated to heat-related issues for the Tokyo Games, offered the crowd a brief history lesson.
“The 1964 Tokyo Olympics, they moved to October because of the brutal heat in Tokyo,” he said. “Well, it’s hotter in Tokyo now than it was back in 1964 ... There’s no movement this year. It’s happening at the end of July and August in the most brutal conditions that you can imagine.”
With an anticipated average temperature of about 32 C and humidity topping 55 per cent, the Olympics will be on par with some of the hottest athletic events ever staged.
“It’ll be the hottest Summer Olympics in history,” he said. “It’s pretty extreme.”
The professionals in the large conference room assembled to discuss ways to keep the world’s best athletes safe and somehow maximize performance in such difficult conditions. Endurance athletes with prolonged exposure are more susceptible to the dangers posed by heat, while some athletes — sprinters, for example — might actually perform better. But almost any athlete competing outdoors will face risks.
One key to competing in heat is for athletes to acclimatize — to arrive at the destination early and exercise for at least seven to 10 days in the hot conditions. The prolonged exposure allows the athlete’s body to adjust; plasma volume increases, heart rate decreases, sweat rate increases and skin and core temperatures stabilize.
Among those in the Orlando crowd was Randy Wilber, the chief physiologist for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee who has worked with Team USA athletes since 1993. He has been considering all of these factors since Tokyo was awarded hosting rights in 2013.
“The bottom line is it’s going to be very hot, very humid. That’s not any surprise,” he said. “It’s how you react to it that matters.”
Wilber has already devised heat plans with his U.S. colleagues. The Tokyo conditions might not lend themselves to world records in many events, but coaches, athletic trainers and physiologists can still help get the athletes onto the podium.
“If we do this right — if we prepare for the heat and humidity right — we could beat some people who would normally blow us up,” Wilber said. “So that’s a pillar of our strategy. If we can out-science our opponents, our chances of doing better are good because these are things that some people won’t pay as much attention to.”
To that end, the various U.S. teams have mostly sorted out travel plans so athletes will arrive well ahead of the opening ceremonies, as early as two weeks for some sports. Some will attend training camps in the region and they’ll also utilize a U.S. training centre in Tokyo.
Those who compete in some outdoor sports, such as the track and field athletes, will be sized for specially engineered ice vests. They’ll be encouraged to wear the vests on bus rides to the stadium, during their pre-competition warm-up, in the staging area and then again post-event to cool down.
“Our job is to make sure they’re prepared for any situation and their body is ready for the heat and humidity on competition day,” Wilber said.
It was 28 C under the cloudless sky as the runners on the desert course began to feel the midday heat. Virtually any training run in Nevada can be dangerous, especially for those who aren’t acclimatized and if conditions and hydration levels aren’t closely monitored.
Runners have had to be airlifted off the Running with the Devil course before and the 2013 race was cancelled altogether when the forecast called for a high of 47 C. Organizers know they have to take precautions and water jugs and aid stations are located about every five kilometres with more than 3,000 pounds of ice available along the course.
At one station, about halfway through his 100-kilometre race, Martin Gruebele, 55, asked for another scoop of ice for his hat as he prepared for a steep incline. “When that baby runs out, I am walking,” he said, setting the hat atop his head.
As the temperature climbed, race volunteers kept a closer eye on the runners.
The ACSM recommends halting any training and practice activities at 32 C. That’s a familiar temperature in the Mojave Desert, but Grundstein, the Georgia climatologist, led a 2013 study that suggested the entire country will be experiencing more dangerously hot days in the future and the sports world needs to ready as well.
“Expected climate change will lead to a considerable increase in the frequency of days with conditions deemed unsuitable for sports activity across much of the U.S.,” the study found.
The southeast, the Gulf Coast and Arizona could average 30 to 50 days of oppressive heat in some areas — and as many as 85 such days in some spots. Other areas, such as New England, the Pacific Northwest or the upper Midwest, which presently have fewer than five oppressive days annually, could see 15 to 30 per year.
Just last week, the temperature in Alaska hit 32 C for the first time in recorded history.
In the desert, only the ultramarathoners were left by late afternoon as temperatures started peaking. Many of the runners who registered were curious to learn how their bodies respond to the heat. Gruebele is a renowned biophysicist who studies animal motion.
“Might as well do some experiments on yourself,” he said.
In last year’s race, he had struggled in the heat, losing eight pounds. He dropped down in distance from 100 kilometres to 50 and found himself crawling across the finish line.
He was armed with a new prerace strategy — Gruebele did sauna training to increase his heat tolerance — and was determined to conquer the elements.
He felt he was finally appreciating the complicated, substantial effect heat has on an athlete’s body.
Heat tolerance is indeed a factor worldwide. So many are feeling it.
It’ll be the hottest Summer Olympics in history (next year in Tokyo). It’s pretty extreme.