Monday, March 10, 2008

DEATH VALLEY - BADWATER TRAINING


I have been thinking about Badwater and trying to come up with good heat acclimation ideas. Over the weekend, I purchased some heat lamps and indoor thermometer and will set them up around a treadmill and/or my bike trainer in a small enclosed area so as to make my own "sauna". My friend Eric is also sponsoring me for a gym membership at Oracle so I can start utilizing their "real" sauna.


I have also been utilizing this technique that I read about on the Badwater blog - anytime I drive, I push the heater up full blast as hot as it goes (my car goes 90 degrees F) with the windows up and usually I put on a heavy wool coat. This really gets the sweat going....which reminds me, I need a new car freshener.

2 comments:

Peter Lubbers said...

As they say, If you can't stand the heat.... I am sure your kids love to get dad to give them a ride to school these days!
I am sure you've seen the movie Running on the Sun, but if you haven't that is a must. It showed some interesting training methods, including the sauna and pulling a tractor tire.
I was just looking at your schedule and noticed you have Hardrock as a warmup for Badwater and you're using TRT as a cooldown -- wow!
Glad it worked out with the gym membership and that you did not get hurt when that car flew off the road.
Take care,
Peter

Alan said...

Hi Peter:

Well, I am so far down the Hardrock waitlist that it isn't happening (plus I couldn't do it anyway - impossible for me to finish HR and still make mandatory pre-race at Death Valley....let alone follow HR with 135 BW). TRT is possible - I haven't decided. I put that up thinking I wouldn't get into HR or BW.

One training method I liked in Running on the Sun was the guy who put on the multi layer sweats and then turned the dryer's exhaust duct to his face as he ran on the treadmill!


Alan