RACING IN THE COLD
I’m a keen triathlete who regularly finishes in the top quartile of finishers, but I was recently beaten by the weather at a cold and windy race and posted a DNF. And it’s not the first time this has happened, so how do I regulate my body temperature and keep warm on a cold and wet day?
For an open-water race, you’ll have to make a decision as to the degree of insulation you want from your wetsuit. There’s a performance-versus-safety issue at play here. A long-sleeved wetsuit or short? Thicker neoprene? The more insulation you have, the more heat protection is offered. Also, if you train regularly in cold water, you become better at coping with the cold temperatures.
When transitioning from the swim to bike, dry yourself as thoroughly as possible. Water conducts heat much better than air, so don’t let it take heat away from your body.
If it’s windy or raining, you should seriously consider waterproof clothing on the bike and run. It won’t help wick away sweat, but that isn’t your main concern in this situation. Your main concern is to keep cold rain and wind away from your skin. Running in the centre of a pack will offer some protection from the wind (though it’s less of a factor compared to cycling speeds).
When running in the cold, it may be necessary to use long-sleeved insulating clothing and a woolly hat. You’ll notice old photographs of Mo Farah when he used to run in cold cross-country races. He had a few collapses in the cold during the 2010 season, at least partly explained by hypothermia. In recent races you’ll see that he wears long sleeved tops.
Temperature regulation is also very much dependent on Body Mass Index (BMI – kg/m2), height, weight and percentage body fat. Fat is a good insulator. A tall, thin, underweight person will present a larger surface area, relative to their weight, to the atmosphere than a larger person would. This means they’ll be able to lose heat faster to the environment. This works well in hot temperatures, because small, light marathon runners don’t overheat as easily. But in the cold, the opposite is true and they lose heat too easily.
Thus it might be worth checking whether you’re underweight. According to BMI, a performance parameter for speed improvement (2013) by Sedeaud et al., an ideal BMI for a male 5-10km runner is in the range of 19.5-20.5.