Welcome back to All Things Running with Sonja & Jen. Today Jen is going to talk about 2 piece race kits, core body temperature & wearing what makes you comfortable.
My first time racing in briefs was in college. At the time tight mini shorts also known as boy shorts were not an option on the market. Most of us wore soccer shorts as running shorts. And while many more options exist today in the way of running shorts: tight, loose, long, mid and short these were not options when I ran.
After college, before I was running for Reebok, I purchased a black Nike 2 piece swimsuit to race in because without being on a team, there was no way to purchase a bun kit. I preferred the two piece kit after racing in college because the briefs stayed put. They didn’t bunch up between my legs causing unwanted chafing from sweat. I loved that I could now wear a crop top and not feel like I was overheating. I wanted to look like the pro runner I hoped to become.
One day during practice we were discussing racing outfits and my Olympic development coach explained to me how the kits came to be and that women’s times significantly improved if they were able to keep their core body temperature down. I’m sure many of you have had this feeling during a workout. You might remove your shirt, choosing to run bare chested as a male or in your sports bra as a female. Suddenly the rep before that felt hard now feels doable.
The science here is easy. Your heart rate increases as your body temperature rises. It has to pump blood faster to remove excess heat from our bodies, quickly moving the blood to our blood vessels next to the skin so that heat can escape from inside our body. The body has a max heart rate during exercise and if your heart rate goes above that then your brain will slow you down. You can not control this. If you try to push through then your brain might cause you to faint which will really slow you down. If you are still & not moving then you will produce less heat.
The important takeaway here is you should wear what makes you comfortable and just know that for some of us, wearing a 2 piece kit is not to show off but chosen for comfort.