Summer Racing for Winter Athletes

Written by GRP Biathlete Kelsey Dickinson 

Recently, GRP Biathlon took on the North American/US Summer Biathlon Championships in Jericho, VT. This is a race weekend that famously and without fail always seems to occur on the hottest weekend of the summer. This year was no exception, featuring highs surpassing 90°F with heat indexes even higher due to the humidity.

Now, you may ask (as many have), why would you have a race weekend in the peak heat of summer when the sport primarily happens in the winter? Well, this race weekend used to be part of qualification for the upcoming World Cup season. This year these races were not qualifiers, but still a great opportunity to do some biathlon! As many in the biathlon community often say, the only way to really get better at biathlon is to do biathlon races. Go figure! Nothing else quite prepares you for the multitude of factors that one must balance during a race in order to both ski fast and hit targets. Managing the heat on top of that only compounds these variables (with the added pleasantries of making it feel like your face might actually melt off in the last laps of the race). 

All of this to say that these annual races in Jericho have necessitated an additional set of skills to deal with the heat and its unique impact on physiology and cognition during a race. There has been a lot of fascinating literature recently surrounding heat management techniques, in many sports like cycling and ultrarunning. The recent Track and Field World Championships in Eugene, Oregon featured a slew of heat-related tactics from ice vests to cold kiddy pools and of course no one can forget just how much ice Molly Sidel shoved down her singlet on her way to bronze at the Tokyo Olympic Marathon in 2021. It seems extreme heat is becoming more and more of a regular occurrence these days, forcing sport to adapt.  Let’s dive into a few tactics that I personally used this year in Jericho.

Ice

There was no such thing as too much ice this weekend. Ice water, ice vests, ice baths, you name it. My favorite ice tool was the ice vest. It helped me regulate my core temperature and had the added benefit of feeling good, like a cool hug. I wore it during all my warmup aside from when I had to carry my rifle and I put it back on immediately after I finished the race to help me drop my elevated core temperature after the hard effort. When I wasn’t wearing it, I stored it in a cooler with ice so that it wouldn’t melt. There were a lot of different ice vests being used this year and you can find them relatively easy on Amazon.

Hydration

Hydration is always key, but even more so when your body is losing an incredible amount of fluid from sweat. I started my hydration plan the day before, making sure I was taking on a significant amount of water and electrolytes early. This included…(ex: 5-6 liters of water and…) I also started hydrating as soon as I woke up the morning of the race. By the time I warmed up I didn’t want to feel like I was still trying to catch up, and taking on more fluid in the morning means that you can get all your peeing done before the races start. This certainly felt like an excessive amount of fluid compared to how much I normally drink, but it was essential to make sure my muscle tissue was as ready as possible to manage the heat.

Adaptation 

If you want to race well in the heat you need to start preparing earlier than you would think. A week or two before the start of the races my mindset was to embrace the heat. I wore extra layers on training days, and I didn’t go out of my way to avoid the heat of the day. I even spent some time in the sauna trying to condition my body’s sweat response to heat. Since the weather leading up to the races was significantly cooler than the races themselves, I  had to get creative to make sure that come race day the hot temperatures were not going to be a shock to my system.

Attitude

Finally, and maybe most importantly, attitude saves the day. Weather is inevitable and out of our control. We  prepare as well as we can and come to the race with a dump truck full of ice, but that won’t change how hard, uncomfortable, and often painful racing in the heat is. Accepting the circumstances of a race can go a long way towards a good performance (heat or cold, rain or snow). I often think of this as working with the heat rather than against it. I’ve spent a great deal of time feeling anxious about heat and how bad it makes me feel, within racing or just summer training. When I was finally able to let go of that resistance and know that yes, it wasn’t going to feel good, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be a good performance, I felt like my approach to racing in Jericho changed dramatically. Although I was no less sticky and sweaty, I was less stressed. When I hit the fourth lap in the Mass Start this year and my face started getting that hot, melty feeling and my body felt like it couldn’t go any harder I didn’t get scared, I just tried to keep moving knowing that those feelings were normal and okay. At the end of the race when I hit the grass and sprawled for a moment I could smile and feel thankful that while summer racing didn’t have to be as miserableas I often thought, I could still be very happy I am a winter athlete.