Let me tell you about the worst I’ve ever felt before the best race of my life.
The morning of my IRONMAN win, I felt like a blob. My body felt swollen, puffy, heavy. Arms and legs like jello. If you’d asked me in that moment how I felt physically, “ready to win” is not the phrase I would have reached for. I felt soft and strange and not at all like a finely tuned machine about to go the distance.
But here’s the thing: I wasn’t worried. Because I’d felt exactly that way before, on the morning of a previous PR race. That swollen, jello-like feeling wasn’t a malfunction. For my body, it was a signature. It was what “ready” actually felt like for me, dressed up in a costume that looked a lot like “falling apart.”
That’s the whole game, and the science backs it up.
Everyone Feels It. That’s Not the Variable.
We tend to assume the athletes who perform best on the big day are the ones who feel the calmest. Steady hands, quiet mind, ice in the veins. It’s a nice story. It’s also wrong.
Researchers Graham Jones, Austin Swain, and Sheldon Hanton studied 97 elite and 114 non-elite competitive swimmers in the period before an important race, measuring both the intensity of their anxiety and how they interpreted it.1 The finding that matters for you: there was no meaningful difference in the intensity of cognitive and somatic anxiety between the two groups. The elites felt just as nervous. Their hearts pounded just as hard. Their thoughts raced just as much.
What separated them was direction: whether they read those signals as facilitative (helping them) or debilitative (hurting them). The elite swimmers interpreted their nerves as a sign their body was getting ready. The non-elites interpreted the same sensations as a threat, evidence that something was wrong.1
Same symptoms. Opposite conclusions. And in the non-elite group, the swimmers who read their anxiety as debilitating actually carried higher anxiety intensity, the fear feeding on itself.1 The elites didn’t have that problem, because they weren’t fighting the feeling in the first place.
So when I stood there feeling like a swollen blob, the elite move wasn’t to panic about it. It was to recognize the signal: Oh. This again. This is what my body does when it’s about to go fast.
Why “Just Relax” Doesn’t Work
Every nervous athlete has been told to calm down. Most have said it to themselves. The problem is that trying to suppress a feeling usually hands it more power. You end up monitoring the very sensation you’re trying to escape, checking in on it again and again, which keeps it front and center.
This is why the goal was never to make the blob feeling disappear. I couldn’t have if I’d tried, and the effort would have just made me more aware of how strange I felt. The feeling was coming along on the ride no matter what. My only real choice was what to make of it.
Your Interpretation Changes Your Actual Physiology
Here’s where it goes beyond mindset and into your bloodstream.
Jeremy Jamieson and colleagues at Harvard ran a study where participants facing a stressful task were taught to reframe their arousal as functional and helpful rather than harmful. Compared to controls, the people who reappraised their arousal showed measurably more adaptive cardiovascular responses: more efficient cardiac output and lower vascular resistance, meaning their blood vessels stayed more open.2
The physiology splits two ways. A challenge response is marked by increased cardiac efficiency and vasodilation, your vessels opening up so more blood and oxygen move where they’re needed. A threat response activates the same arousal system but constricts the vasculature and reduces cardiac efficiency, the body bracing for damage rather than reaching for performance.2
Read that again, because it’s remarkable: the racing heart can be the same, but whether your vessels open or clamp down depends in part on whether you’ve decided this feeling is help or harm. Your brain is essentially placing a bet on how it needs to prepare, and your interpretation tilts the odds.
That swollen, full feeling I had on IRONMAN morning? That’s a body flooded and primed. I just happened to have learned, through a previous PR, to read it as readiness instead of dread.
How to Build This Before Your Next Start Line
The elite swimmers weren’t born reading their nerves correctly, and Jamieson’s subjects learned the reframe in a single session. This is trainable. Here’s how I coach it.
Learn your own signature. Your “ready” might not look like calm. For me it was the blob feeling. For you it might be a sour stomach, cold hands, the urge to pee every five minutes, a brain that won’t shut up. Start logging how you feel before your best workouts and races. Over time you’ll spot the pattern, and what once felt like a warning sign becomes familiar territory.
Practice in training, not just on race day. Every hard interval, every tempo that makes you want to quit, every session where doubt creeps in is a rep at reading discomfort correctly. Don’t wait for your goal race to attempt the reframe for the first time under the most pressure.
Name the signal honestly. When the nerves hit, tell yourself the true thing: this is my body getting ready for the demands it’s about to face. You’re not lying. The physiology genuinely is preparation. You’re just refusing the fearful reading.
Take it along for the ride. You don’t have to love the feeling. You just have to stop treating it as the enemy you must defeat before you’re allowed to perform. The stress isn’t going anywhere. Let it ride shotgun.
The Bottom Line
On the biggest morning of my racing life, I felt like a blob. Swollen, soft, jello-limbed. And I won.
Not because I conquered the feeling, but because I’d learned to read it. The nerves, the strangeness, the keyed-up body, none of it was the problem. The only question that ever mattered was what I decided it meant.
You’re going to feel it too. The pounding heart, the doubt, the body doing something weird. So is the athlete next to you. The difference on the day won’t be who feels calmest. It’ll be who looks at all that energy and thinks: good. I’m ready.
Footnotes
Jamieson, J. P., Nock, M. K., & Mendes, W. B. (2012). Mind over matter: Reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive responses to stress. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141(3), 417–422. ↩ ↩2
Jones, G., Swain, A. B. J., & Hanton, S. (1994). Intensity and interpretation of anxiety symptoms in elite and non-elite sports performers. Personality and Individual Differences, 17(5), 657–663. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
Both ice baths and saunas have made a huge comeback in endurance sports circles. Every athlete seems to have an opinion. Social media is full of people dunking in frozen tubs and sitting in 200-degree rooms like it’s the latest performance hack.
Here’s where I land after 32 years of coaching: both tools have real value. Neither one replaces sleep, nutrition, and smart training. And knowing when to use each one matters a lot.
What an Ice Bath Actually Does
Cold water immersion, usually 50 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 to 15 minutes, triggers a series of physiological responses.
Blood vessels constrict. That reduces blood flow to the muscles and limits the inflammatory response to the workout. Your core temperature drops. When you get out, there’s a rebound effect as blood rushes back in, which helps flush metabolic waste products from the tissue.
The result is reduced immediate soreness and faster perceived recovery. You feel better sooner.
The tradeoff is that some of the inflammation you’re suppressing is actually part of the training adaptation process. That soreness isn’t just discomfort. It’s your body signaling that repair and growth are happening. Research has raised real questions about whether frequent cold water immersion reduces long-term training gains by blunting that adaptation signal.
What a Sauna Actually Does
Heat exposure works differently. A sauna session, typically 15 to 20 minutes at 170 to 200 degrees, triggers a number of responses that are genuinely useful for endurance athletes.
Plasma volume increases over time with consistent sauna use, which means more blood volume available to deliver oxygen during exercise. Heat shock proteins are produced, which help repair and protect cells. Growth hormone spikes. Heart rate increases similarly to light aerobic exercise. Consistent sauna use has been shown in research to improve cardiovascular fitness markers.
The recovery benefits are more about parasympathetic nervous system activation. Your body relaxes. Tension releases. Sleep quality often improves with evening sauna use.
When to Use Ice: Prioritize Recovery Over Adaptation
Ice baths are most useful when you have back-to-back hard training days or when you’re in a race block and need to recover as fast as possible between sessions. If you have a hard workout on Friday and a long run on Saturday, cold immersion Friday evening helps blunt soreness so you can execute Saturday’s session.
During peak training blocks, when you’re racing frequently, or when you’re managing a minor soft tissue issue, ice exposure makes sense as a recovery accelerator.
Where I’d steer athletes away from cold water immersion is in the base-building phase when you’re trying to accumulate adaptation. If the whole point of this training cycle is to build fitness, suppressing the inflammatory response repeatedly might work against you. Let the adaptation happen. Earn it.
When to Use Sauna: Build, Recover, and Regulate
Sauna is a better fit as a regular recovery tool across the full training year. It doesn’t blunt adaptation the way cold immersion might. The cardiovascular and hormonal benefits of consistent heat exposure stack up over time. And the parasympathetic activation helps athletes who carry a lot of stress physically and mentally.
Post-workout sauna use, 15 to 20 minutes after easy or moderate sessions, is well-tolerated for most athletes. After very intense sessions, give yourself an hour before getting in.
Evening sauna sessions before bed can genuinely improve sleep quality, which is the single most important recovery tool any athlete has. If sauna helps you sleep better and recover better, the benefits compound quickly.
Hydration is non-negotiable with regular sauna use. You will sweat significantly. Replenish accordingly.
Can You Do Both?
Yes, and the contrast therapy approach, alternating between heat and cold, has a long track record in athlete recovery rooms. The key principle is usually to end on cold if your goal is recovery and end on heat if your goal is relaxation and sleep prep.
If you’re going to combine them, keep it simple. Start with 10 to 15 minutes of heat. Follow with 3 to 5 minutes of cold. Repeat two to three cycles. This drives a strong vascular pumping effect that many athletes find very effective for next-day soreness.
The Bottom Line
Ice bath: best for acute recovery, back-to-back hard days, and race periods when you need to feel good fast. Use with some restraint during base-building phases.
Sauna: best as a consistent long-term tool. Real cardiovascular and recovery benefits that compound over weeks and months. Great for stress management and sleep quality.
Both are tools. Neither replaces the fundamentals. Sleep, nutrition, smart training load management, and consistency are doing the heavy lifting. Ice and sauna support the process. They don’t replace it.
Want a complete recovery plan built into your training program? Let’s talk. iamwithoutlimits.com/coaching
Do the work.
Tom Clifford CEO, Without Limits Endurance USATF Level 2 Coach | USA Triathlon Coach
Summer running in the South is no joke. Humidity that feels like a wet blanket. Temps pushing 90 before 8am. Asphalt that radiates heat back up at you like an oven. If you try to run your normal pace in those conditions, your body will let you know about it fast.
The good news is that heat training doesn’t have to wreck you. It just requires a different approach.
Your Body Is Working Harder Than You Think
Here’s the thing most runners miss. When it’s hot, your heart rate climbs even when you’re running slowly. Your cardiovascular system is now doing two jobs at the same time. It has to deliver oxygen to your working muscles AND pump blood to the skin surface so your body can cool itself through sweat.
That’s a real extra load. Your heart doesn’t care that you’re only doing an easy 6-miler. If it’s 88 degrees and 80% humidity, your HR is going to be elevated above where it would be on a cool morning. That’s physiology, not weakness.
Fighting it is a mistake. Working with it is the smart play.
Pace Adjustment: The 10-Second Rule
A simple rule I use with athletes: for every 5 degrees above 60°F, slow your easy pace by about 10 seconds per mile. That sounds conservative. It is. And it’s right.
If you normally run easy runs at a 9:00/mile pace, you should expect to run 9:30 to 9:50 on a 90-degree morning just to stay in the same aerobic zone. Your effort level stays the same. Your pace drops. That’s not regression. That’s smart training.
Trying to hit your normal pace numbers in extreme heat means you’re working at a higher intensity than you planned, burning more glycogen, spending more recovery time, and raising your injury risk. None of that is worth it.
Run by effort. Let the numbers be what they are.
Heart Rate Zones in the Heat
If you train with a heart rate monitor, heat running gives you a real chance to use it well. Your target zones don’t change just because it’s summer. What changes is how much work it takes to stay in them.
For easy aerobic runs, you want to stay in Zone 2. In hot conditions, that means slowing down more than your brain wants you to. Most athletes resist this. They feel like they’re barely running. But they’re getting the same aerobic benefit they would in cooler conditions. The adaptation is happening even if the pace doesn’t look impressive on Strava.
If your HR is creeping into Zone 3 and 4 on what was supposed to be an easy run, slow down. Walk if you need to. This isn’t failure. It’s the right call.
Hydration Changes the Equation
You can’t outrun dehydration in the heat. Even mild dehydration of 2% body weight raises your heart rate and tanks performance. By the time you feel thirsty, you’re already behind.
Pre-hydrate before you head out. Don’t skip sodium. Electrolytes matter more in summer than any other time of year. And if you’re going longer than 45 minutes in serious heat, you need to be taking in fluids during the run.
Consider the timing of your runs too. Early morning or after sunset is not just more comfortable. It’s physiologically smarter. Midday summer running in the Carolinas is genuinely risky if you’re not experienced and prepared.
Acclimatization Is Real
Here’s the upside. Your body adapts to heat training over 10 to 14 days of consistent exposure. Plasma volume increases. You start sweating earlier and more efficiently. Your HR response to the same workload drops. You actually get better at running in heat.
But that adaptation doesn’t happen if you skip every hot run or stay on the treadmill all summer. You have to earn it.
The athletes I coach who stay consistent through the Carolina summers come out the other side with real fitness. When fall race season arrives and temperatures drop, those athletes feel like they have another gear. That gear was built in the heat.
The Bottom Line
Run slower. Monitor your HR. Hydrate aggressively. Stop trying to hit your winter pace splits in August.
Summer running is an investment. Do it right and you’ll race well when it counts. Do it wrong and you’ll spend September recovering instead of performing.
If you want help dialing in your summer training plan, we’d love to work with you. Reach out at iamwithoutlimits.com/coaching.
Do the work.
Tom Clifford CEO, Without Limits Endurance USATF Level 2 Coach | USA Triathlon Coach
Most runners have experienced it. That feeling, deep down in the gut, that signals bad news if you are midrun or ridrace. It means you must slow down or stop and
(hopefully) find a bush, a tree, or a porta john and take care of business or risk the unfortunate and embarrassing mess of not making it!
If you are one of the lucky runners who has never experienced this, read no further. This article is a summary of the possible causes of runner’s diarrhea and how you can
prevent it while running.
1. Eating a high fiber or high fat diet, especially in the 1-2 days prior to a big run or race can contribute to having a larger load of **** and the need to eliminate said load.
Prevention here involves eating low fiber carbohydrate foods for at least 1 day prior to your event paired with lean protein and generally avoiding fibrous veggies, beans, and salads. An
example might be meals of chicken or fish served with white rice or white pasta or white potatoes and/or white or sourdough bread. Low fiber and low fat breakfast items such as instant oatmeal, plain bagel, banana, and a favorite sports drink are recommended 2-3 hours prior to race start, to allow time for full elimination.
2. Lack of hydration and electrolytes in the days leading up to your race or during a run can lead to gut distress.
Prevention: Losing 4% of body weight in sweat during a run or race increases your risk of bowel movements while running. Drink about ½ of your body weight each day in fluid ounces to maintain hydration. Try drinking a diluted carbohydrate drink with electrolytes before, during, & after running to maintain electrolyte balance and optimal performance.
3. Eating or drinking foods or products containing lactose, fructose, or agave syrup for certain individuals will increase likelihood of gut issues while running.
Prevention: Many runners have some degree of Lactose intolerance and dairy products can cause increased gas, bloating and bowel movements in those individuals. Women have a harder time digesting and processing fructose than men and this can lead to more gut issues with any sports drinks and energy gummies/gels that are high in fructose!! i. Try to use drinks and chews or gels that do not contain fructose: Skratch, Huma, Tailwind, Clif, UCan are some brands to try
4. Lack of regular eating habits and a strong routine around nutrition for training
Prevention: Our bodies like to create and maintain a state of balance… changing routines can have a HUGE impact on how we feel and perform. Avoid introducing new foods and or
drinks on or near race day. Start introducing any new fluid replenishers, gels, bars, race breakfast, etc. weeks or even months prior to race day and during training days to get your
body used to them. Plan and practice eating and drinking for your race day routine around a similar time you would for race day so your body is more likely to be optimally prepared.
Keep a journal of foods you try and your bowel movements so you know what works best.
5. Relying on bowel prep and anti-diarrhea medications can be risky.
Prevention: Using drugs such as chemical laxatives, enemas, bowel preps, and colonic irrigations to purge their intestines can cause altered electrolyte levels and have side effects such as nausea and cramping. Avoid taking ibuprofen before a race as it can aggravate GI bleeding and potentially cause leaky gut which could interfere with fluid balance and cause dehydration, as well as potentially interfere with recovery. INSTEAD… try eating a few mint TUMS roughly 20 minutes before higher intensity workouts and long runs. This can help slow down GI issues. ALSO…consider taking a prebiotic/probiotic product each morning oftaper week to help improve gut integrity which can help when the gut is stressed due to increased body heat and lower oxygen levels in circulation during exercise.
6. Lack of food intake and nutrition/hydration in the days leading up to the race
Prevention: DON’T STOP EATING!!! The last thing you want to do is stop eating during the build up to your event and long training runs – your body needs that fuel! It can take anywhere from 24-72 hours for food to travel through our digestive system (and this tends to be faster with runners) so continuing to consume food throughout training and up until ~ 3 hours before the race will help maintain the natural cycle of food absorption and digestion. If worried about bowel movements during long runs or race day, start keeping a journal of foods you consume and how your body reacts to them (positive or negative) so you know what you want to eat during training and pre-race.
Have you noticed feeling fatigue, tired or heavy legs during running, difficulty completing workouts, or not recovering well before the next session?
You may have low iron stores (as measured by low serum ferritin). In fact, many athletes experience some form of nutrition related fatigue that is related to one of the following:
- Under fueling in general, not eating enough energy (calories) to support training.
- Not taking in enough carbohydrate during the time just before, during or after training.
- Eating inadequate iron to support the demands of running and suffering from lower production of hemoglobin and red blood cells – that carry oxygen to working muscles.
Low levels of hemoglobin in the blood, or low levels of the iron storage protein ferritin, can have a profoundly negative impact on your ability to have successful workouts and races.
Low ferritin levels can cause poor performance, even when hemoglobin levels are normal.
Research with high school cross country runners has shown about 3% of boys and 40% of girls were iron deficient at the beginning of the season and even higher numbers were seen by the end of the season.
There are 3 primary sons for why female runners are at greater risk for iron deficiency:
- dietary intake of iron tends to be very poor.
- menstrual cycles cause a substantial loss of blood. This increases the body’s demand for iron.
- running training itself causes an additional loss of iron – this happens primarily through gastrointestinal blood loss.
Distance runners can suffer from impaired performance even at iron levels at the low end of the “normal” reference range. (12 – 200 ng/ml for women; 12 – 500 ng/ml for men)
Athletes with ferritin levels at the low end of “normal” for the general population were found by researchers to exhibit many of the same symptoms as athletes with clinically low iron (<12 ng/mL).
Runners should aim for ferritin levels above 40 ng/mL to avoid fatigue and impaired performance from iron deficiency.
The best and easiest way to fix iron deficiency is the most obvious one: increase the iron sources you consume. This can involve increasing your dietary intake, taking an iron supplement, or, preferably, both.
Meat, especially red meat is rich in heme-iron, the form of iron that is readily absorbed and least impacted by factors that impair the absorption of non-heme iron (found in grains, beans, and vegetables). In fact, eating varied meals that contain both heme- and non-heme iron improves absorption of the plant-based sources. Meat, poultry and fish all share this ability to improve absorption of non-heme iron foods.
There is a significant benefit of iron supplementation in iron deficient athletes, both when it comes to increasing serum ferritin levels and to increasing aerobic performance.
Runners Essentials Daily Vitamin Formula by Without Limits is designed to support the endurance athlete’s needs for key nutrients including iron. The form – Ferrous Fumarate is less likely to cause GI problems (constipation), and the dosage – 22 mg (or 122% of Daily Value) is intended to prevent diminishing iron stores. It is recommended that you take the 2 capsules with a Vitamin C rich juice to increase absorption, apart from meals, antiacids, tea, or Calcium supplements which can inhibit iron availability for absorption, or at bedtime for better GI tolerance.
By Diana Davis RDN LDN
It’s that time of year again – hot, humid, muggy! We know it’s what we get every summer in the South, but we still want/need to train to maintain fitness or get ready for our Fall races. The most important detail of your run or bike plans over summer is hydration.
Why: Better hydration (specifically using a sports electrolyte drink) promotes better cooling of the body, better endurance, less muscle damage, less cortisol release, faster recovery and a better workout the next time you go out.
What to drink: This is a very individual choice. If your run or ride is 1 hour or less, water is an appropriate choice. For all runs/rides that are over 60 minutes, I recommend a sports drink – the one that tastes so good that you want to drink it! Your sports drink choice should contain carbohydrates from dextrose, sucrose, and/or maltodextrin and relatively less fructose. Sweat contains the electrolytes sodium, chloride, potassium, and magnesium so your electrolyte replacement drink should ideally contain all of these.
How much to drink: The most accurate way to determine this is to calculate your sweat rate, but if you have not done this, a good rule of thumb is to drink 16-32 ounces of your favorite sports drink for each hour of running.
When to drink: Pre-hydrate well the day before and day of training or racing. Once you are ready to head out, drink early and often, taking sips before you start and continue to take sips while you run or ride. This means that you need to carry or wear your preferred sports drink and have replenishments stashed along your route or circle back to your house, car or other source to refill.
#diana.davis.rd
