Heat, preparation and holidays

Detailed show notes

Training continues on holiday

George Svarnas is in Athens preparing for Ironman Tallinn. He is not fitting in the planned hours, and work is holding sport back. In a few days, he leaves for a family holiday in Crete with a road bike rather than a triathlon bike; narrow roads and climbing do not feel safe on the bars. He planned over 25 hours but concludes that around 20 is more realistic, with prepared food and a little more rest.

Jenny Boulmeti is in Frankfurt supporting Sotiris’s Ironman and has started her big Kona blocks. Abroad, her plan stays intact: a hotel gym, indoor cycling and runs by the river or on a treadmill. Both raced Frankfurt in 2023 when it hosted the women’s European Championship; this year it is the men’s event, with Sunday temperatures near 30 degrees.

Heat changes numbers as well as sensations

Jenny says she thrives in heat and suffers in cold. Before a race, she emphasises hydration and electrolytes. During big blocks, she makes use of early light, heading out at dawn or moving intensity indoors when it is unmanageable outside. She pours water over herself in training and racing to keep her body wet.

George has used heat deliberately since last year and is monitoring core temperature this year. He describes Norwegian research around Olympic preparation suggesting heat training can produce adaptations close to altitude training; if you cannot spend a month in the mountains, Greek heat is an available tool, used carefully. His example is the same half-distance watts in cool Katerini at a heart rate of 145 versus 160 or more in heat. He therefore adjusts intensity rather than assuming fitness has declined.

Kona: cooling, the Energy Lab and limits to comparison

Jenny builds her blocks in Greece throughout summer. She usually went to Hawaii a month early; this is her first year staying two weeks for recovery, taper and racing, and she wants to run through the Energy Lab again. She describes a coastal out-and-back with stifling humidity, then Queen K over the lava and back into a windless heat laboratory. She keeps energy and electrolytes topped up and her body wet; she is undecided about a cap because she wants her scalp wet.

Trisuit weight matters more as distance grows. For helmets, small aerodynamic differences in vents are not worth overheating. Moving from hot training blocks in Cyprus to Estonia, George saw twenty to twenty-five more watts at the same heart rate. They agree that races cannot be directly compared: heat slows running, wind adds cycling cost, and Jenny describes the solitude of Kona’s women’s day without a line of riders ahead.