More good reading on the topic:
New video by Dylan Johnson on the topic
canāt really watch the video now, but cool to see Dylan doing well out there in the cycling world. When he was an uber talented 15 year old, crushing everyone in our local race series on his steel singlespeed, we were wondering if heād be cycling at such a high level as he got older. I now see heās doing quite well along the NUE circuit.
Soā¦ Iām heading on holiday next week. 4 days into the holiday Iām going to be tackling the infamous āValley Of The Tearsā, a brutally steep climb in searing heat. Last year I did it, the temperature was in the high 90s and I completely lost the ability to pedal.
Howeverā¦ my hotel has a sauna. Will 3 sessions in there do anything at all to prepare me for the ride?
Yes wearing extra clothes during a workout will work. What youāre trying to achieve is an elevated body core temperature. Simply wearing extra clothing during rest would be difficult to reach the desired affect.
I am digging out the topic, because I would like some advice about heat acclimation timing. Is it better to place it during loading week or recovery week?
I am currently in my recovery week, and I have a competition (not my main goal event) on saturday, and it will be very hot. I am completely wrecked from my 3 weeks of sustained power build, and I am facing the dilemna: rest and train in my cool cave (recovery rides) to recover as best as possible and see what happens on saturday in the heat, or take the risk to hamper my recovery by doing my 2 recovery rides outside in the heat to get accustomed to it (35Ā°C=95Ā°F).
Thanks for your wise suggestions
That isnāt enough time to adapt. Iād just recover as best as you can.
I am one of those who really struggle in hot environments and would therefore, need some serious preparation for my next race (3 days stage race) in tropical climate. I have raced in this climate a few times before and it always ended in disaster.
It will be 30-35C at the race and where I live it doesnāt get any warmer than 20C. The race is in five weeks from now and I was thinking about starting with heat training 2,5 weeks before the race. How often do I need to heat train? I donāt want to do my long endurance rides indoors but I can do the rest. Will I even be able to do any high intensity when heat training? Should I start now instead?
I usually do 2 recovery zone 1 sessions, 2 4h+ zone 2 sessions and 3 interval sessions/ week leading up to an event like this. How should I schedule in heat training best?
Read the posts and linked articles above in this thread.
I did. And now I would like to discuss it and brainstorm about it.
Heat and humidity absolutely destroyed me in my 2:33:52 race this past weekend. I fell apart around the the end of lap 1 of 3 (35-40 minutes). By lap 3 I was getting dizzy on uphills and could barely turn the pedals, I thought I was gonna need to walk and questioned why I even like cycling at this point. I was NOT heat adapted. Back to revisit my 2019 protocol.
Oddly enough I was able to consume plenty of water and carbohydrates without stomach issues, but it did nothing to combat my heat woes. Took in upwards of 120g of carbs an hour. So silver lining in consumption for future races.
@mcdreyer - How was your Desert Dash experience? Iām planning to participate this year.
Dredging up this old thread. Iām curious to hear about successful and unsuccessful protocols for colder climate riders. Anyone willing to share experiences? Ambient temp at my house is about 65-68F degrees, and Iāve done 3 āheatā exercises this week. No fans: One Z1/2 45ā ride with a long sleeve jersey. One 60ā long sleeve jersey (black coffee ride, so it was semi fasted); and one 30ā extended Z2 ride after a VO2 Max workout with a long sleeve rain jacket.
I donāt really have time to draw a bath and extend my workout window by 30 minutes, so my protocol is to ride sub-threshold efforts with a long sleeve jersey or jacket for 30 to 60 minutes without fans on.
I donāt have a hot weather race coming up. Just looking for the plasma / mitochondrial response for training. Soā¦
What thermometers have you used to measure your body temp? I am not particularly dedicated enough to do the rectal thermometer, nor purchasing the CORE gadget referenced here before.
Is every other day for 45-60 minutes frequent enough; and further is turning off the fan and adding a long sleeve sufficient to get your core temp up for Z1/Z2 rides (thinking Lazy Mountain)?
With not having hot weather races coming upā¦ is it worth trying to nail this gain? research in controlled tests pointing to 4-8% VO2 max is hardly a āmarginalā one, but if not executed properly it could just hamper good training for nothingā¦
Dredging up this thread as I am trying to use HA to help mitigate the effects of altitude at SBT GRVL next week.
I am doing a combination of sauna sessions, added clothing on select outdoor rides and will look to try HWI tomorrow after an easy trainer session (bundled up).
It seems the desired core body temp is above 100* and even up to 101* if I am reading this thread correctlyā¦does someone (maybe @MI-XC ?) have a link to that protocol? I am using a CORE sensor to measure body tempā¦did not use it on Sunday when I did a bundled-up ride (vest and arm warmers on a ride that eventually hit 80*) or my sauna sessions later that day. I did use it this AM on my ride and got my temp up to 99.5* (kinda hard to raise your body temp much when it is only 65* to start the ride, I guess 
).
Have another sauna session at lunch today and Iāll see what that does for me and will report back.
So here is my temp data from the lunch sauna sessionā¦what is interesting is that I was out of the sauna ~12:50but I still continued to ācookā for another ~15 min.
Got out of sauna and my temp was ~99.5 but it eventually peaked at just over 101*, even though I was long out of the sauna.
I also stayed in the entire 30 min this timeā¦first session I stepped out for a minute just past halfway.
For what its worth some n=1 anecdata inspired by @brendanhousler heat acclimation comments on another thread.
The weather here gets warm and dry in May, a lot of afternoon rides with average temp >= 85F and a handful or two >=90F. While my initial adaptation is pretty quick (a few weeks), it takes me about 3 months (May, June, July) before I see real changes. And by late July or early August, Iām putting down bigger power numbers vs HR zones when the temps are in the 80s. But Iām a hard gainer with only 6 years training at 60 yr old.
Right on schedule my power has increased vs HR, noticeably higher than when the temps were 50s and 60s in February and March. Endurance rides at 190-200W are now 134-136bpm in ~85F temps this past couple weeks, versus 138-140bpm early this year when the temps were much cooler. This extra fitness boost hangs around until late October when the afternoons training temps finally drop below 80. Morning rides when temps are 60s and 70s are more fun 
But I still tend to blow up somewhere over 95F.
How do you like the Core sensor? What data analysis tools support displaying it from recorded rides? (ie strava, trainingpeaks, TR, etc.)
Iāve been looking at those, but since most of the data I would want to record is on indoor rides, itās not that interesting since TR doesnāt record the data. (Iām not interested in recording rides separately and dealing with that hassle.)
Once TR records the data, I will likely get one.
Cool temps AND doing SBTā¦I hate you! #sarcasmANDjealousy
I canāt offer much since I live in really high humidity, but I wish you much luck and cool temps at SBT! Wish I was going to be there too!
intervals.icu can show the data. Recording/display is simple with Wahoo or Garmin, data gets stored in the fit file. Garmin shows it on Connect, too.
I own one. I donāt find it really useful, would not buy it again. Did some HA weeks but one heats up anyway when riding indoors. Simply dress up a little. No need for an extra device. However, Iām sure others love their Core.
Iām pretty Meh on it, TBH. I got it years ago, struggled to get it working and it has been sitting ever since. The support from Garmin and Wahoo just wasnāt there when I got it.
I just got it functioning this week so that is literally some of the first data I have seen from it.
For this specific use, it is fineā¦I am using a Garmin watch to view data real-time and the above data is from the Core app. From what I can tell, the temp data does not export with the Garmin files, though.