Binge ice cream, pace a marathon and sleep

Hi all,

I just Googled, what is heat's effect on the murder rate. I know, what is my problem? I was pretty warm in my house being too stubborn to put on the air conditioning, writing athlete plans like this scene in GI Jane and I remembered a thread from a podcast, or was it the radio? My memory checked out. This study states that "every 5 °C increase in daily mean temperature was associated with a 9.5% increase in intentional homicide in Chicago and New York." 

This effect has one explanation where discomfort and frustration leads to increasing aggression. 

Meanwhile the bulk of running races are held in the heat of the summer. Many of you are training right now and can't always get in your run before the heat sets in. So let me say this, if you are not loving running in the heat or find heat demotivating for running after work and are feeling guilty about getting in less exercise, go easy on yourself. Heat drives people to do some really bad things, it's cool to just binge some ice cream. 

HOW TO PACE A MARATHON
Here is a great summary of a new study looking at ten years of data from over 146,000 runners in the Valencia Marathon. This is real data from real runners as opposed to a short-term study of people in a lab. Some findings include:

• "Slower runners were more likely to pace poorly and hit the wall. Sub-3:00 men and sub-3:15 women showed the most even pacing and least fatigue collapse.
• Even-paced runners ran 27–34 minutes faster than those who used positive or negative pacing; that’s an enormous margin for such a simple strategy.
• Pacing variability was strongly correlated with marathon time, and runners who hit the wall at 18 miles lost an average of 36 minutes compared to those who didn’t."

From a coaching perspective, this means ensuring nutrition strategies are dialed in to avoid bonking and finding a realistic goal marathon pace in training and using that as the target across the race. For racers this means nailing nutrition in training and racing as well as not going out too fast even if it feels good. 

WESTERN STATES HOT TAKES

• Precision Fuel and Hydration puts out case studies of their athletes from Western States. They total grams of carbs (70g to 126g per hour) and how much fluid and sodium. 
• W​omen's winner, Abby Hall describes her win. "I believe the compilation of my own experiences and heartbreaks from past races and my injury became a secret weapon. we talk about the pain cave, but this work almost became work in my “heart cave”, if you will." 

SLEEP
I liked this Fresh Air podcast on sleep. It covers using melatonin, night owls, the stigma on sleep aids and how much sleep we really need. 

STRENGTH 
See you on Wednesday nights for Strength Training for Runners, live to your screen. Free always. Join me.