Freezing Cold
by Brayton
Nov 5, 07:04 PM
Actually, where I am it’s well below freezing. Today was only the second time in my life that a I’ve been at a ski race that was cancelled because it was too cold. Last year City of Lakes was cancelled because the race course melted in to the lake, which made it the only race I’ve ever had cancelled because it was too warm.
The highest reported temp today was -24°C, which was about an hour after the race was initially supposed to start and an hour before it was supposed to start after it was delayed the second time. The FIS limit is -20, so we were never even close. No sticking the thermometer in your armpit until it reads legal today. Interestingly, a lot of the USST guys were talking about sittting the race out even if got just barely warm enough. They were afraid of damaging their lungs somewhat permanently. Makes me wondered, should I be worried?
We’re going to try again tomorrow. Today was a skate sprint which would have been a nice low pressure way to start the season, tomorrow is a 10/10 pursuit, which will be a little tougher. If these races are both cancelled though, it sure throws a wrench in the works for World Cup Qualifying.
Nov 6, 12:02 PM
Good luck, Brayt. But Brayton, I’ve gone to at least 2 other races with you where they’ve cancelled for cold.
1) SLU carnival freshman year
2) Shit race (NORAM?) on a road in Quebec during camp sophomore year.
And I’m sure I can think of more.
Fairbanks is not a place you’re supposed to be in the winter. Why not have the race on a glacier somplace less miserable? Or on artificial snow on an alpine area. Or in Pinkham Notch.
Also, what was the course like, what was the snow like? What sort of skis did you prep? I would imagine that a 1k sprint on a hilly course on dry snow at -24 you could gain an advantage with some non-standard technique. I would plan on doing a lot of running. Fairbanks is one of the few places where skating races are routinely won on classic skis.
BTW It was like 60 here yesterday.
Again, good luck. Let us know.
Nov 6, 06:57 PM
Brayt wrote: Interestingly, a lot of the USST guys were talking about sittting the race out even if got just barely warm enough. They were afraid of damaging their lungs somewhat permanently. Makes me wondered, should I be worried?
Ok, this is something I’ve been curious about for a long time.
Frankly, I call major bullshit. Can anyone give a reference to a published study showing that intense exercise in extreme cold (i.e. below 0F) actually damages lung tissue? I haven’t been able to find one.
I would believe that the cold does all sorts of ancillary harm (reduced protection against disease, increased metobolic stress (ie you work much harder)). In fact, this is why it doesn’t surprise me that people feel as though they develop problems with their lungs after racing in cold weather. I just would bet that the cold didn’t actually damage anything, it just made them temporarily more susceptible to infection.
But I’m willing to be convinced otherwise…
You could also hold the races at Lolo Pass, about an hour outside of MIssoula. Skied today and yesterday up there in over 1.5ft of snow. Hopefully the ski club will get their act together and start grooming this week.
Nov 7, 10:16 AM
So, Joran, I take it that you haven’t heard about Google Scholar yet. Here’s my favorite. It looks like the jury is still out on permanent. But the temporary injury is certainly real. The “post-race hack”, as we call it, can last up to a week but “mast cell infiltration” can last longer than that.
The theory among some, Joran, is that the astonishingly high rate of asthma among xc skiers is not only due to over-diagnosis (b/c the affects of cold weather excersize are similar to asthma) but also because repeated cold weather excersize causes asthma. You know how hard that sort of thing is to prove.
I’m with the USST guys. If the race were held and they competed it would very likely have affected their results for the next race and possibly the rest of nationals.
Nov 7, 11:49 AM
Thanks for the link Tom!
When I looked (a few months ago) I did find several studies attempting to answer the question of why cold weather athletes have a higher incidence of asthma, particularly exercise induced asthma.
For example, I think I found a study using dog sled dogs (probably similar to what you found) and speed skaters.
But the USST guys (and many others!) seem to be claiming that racing in -4F weather is really really bad; do we have any evidence that racing in -4F weather is actually worse for you than racing in +5F weather? What about +15F? Presumably, the USST guys wouldn’t have had a problem with that.
So yes, I have seen several studies that provide evidence that repeated exercise in “cold” weather can cause symptoms similar to those of asthma.
My question is, what is “cold”? I’d be curious how different the effects are of racing in +15F and -5F. I’m betting the difference isn’t that much.
Also, just to be clear, I do sympathize with the USST guys. As I said in my previous post, I do agree that its entirely possible for racing in cold weather to effect your races later on; I just don’t understand why people are convinced that the risk curve is essentially flat until you get a bit below 0F, at which point suddenly you are at risk of doing permanent damage to your lungs.
Nov 7, 12:26 PM
simply thinking about it from a physics standpoint, there’s got to be a point at which you’ll need oxygen at a much faster rate than your body can warm it enough to be effectively used. The whole point of lung tissue is to present as much surface area for O2 absorption as possible. this same idea means a shitload more surface area for cooling and possible tissue damage. I’d assume that the damage done to your lungs would be similar to that done by frostbite, ie. frozen crystals, dead tissue, etc. I know when i was skiing in Sweden, almost everyone up there would use Lung+ or some other sort of air-warming device if it was cold out. I have no idea where the line is drawn between short-term, post-race hack and permanent damage though.
Nov 7, 02:27 PM
Spencer… Lung frostbite? I highly doubt that. That surface area is also getting lots and lots of warm blood. There is some maximum rate but I don’t think that you get anywhere near it breathing air. Sure the equilibrium temp of my lung surface is going to drop but not 37 degrees! If it did, I’m sure I would be exhibiting other problems.
Though in agreement, temperature affects are often remarkably non-linear. But that isn’t the point. Our decision “Race/no-race” is discrete. That means our policy must also be discrete regardless of how continuous our concerns.
Of course I would also prefer that the policy be less arbitrary, i.e. based on research.
BTW did anyone not already know about Google Scholar? Fucking sweet huh? Too bad so much stuff is pay-for (and not cached). Luckily I’ve got my MIT VPN.
Nov 7, 06:12 PM
Tom wrote: Though in agreement, temperature affects are often remarkably non-linear. But that isn’t the point. Our decision “Race/no-race” is discrete. That means our policy must also be discrete regardless of how continuous our concerns.
Where’s the imaginative Tom that I used to know? If we had a continuous risk curve (for which the x-axis is temperature) we could simply flip a coin that is loaded according to the probabilities given by our risk function.
But in all seriousness, the race/no-race issue is at the heart of my complaint. When I peruse the first 30 or so papers that Google Scholar spits out, almost none of the abstracts specify what temp they are studying at! Of those few that do, many of them are finding lung damage after exercising in temps as warm as 0C or even +2C!
See: (sorry, I’ve forgotten how to do links)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12405726&dopt=Citation
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8621373&dopt=Citation
(Figure skaters aren’t going to be skating in -4F!)
So given that research shows significant lung impairment at temps near freezing, why have so many people decided that racing in those temps is just fine, but that -5F is potentially catastrophic?
Where is the rationality in this decision making process? Shouldn’t the FIS limit be 0C based on these studies?
Nov 7, 09:19 PM
You guys are wimps. I’d race on Pluto, even if it wouldn’t lower my FIS ranking because it’s too cold for them to sanction it.
The USST probably has some fucking Excel spreadsheet where they log the [training hours] / [temperature^4] or some BS. They probably sit around and say things like:
“Are you going to ski today?”.
“I don’t think so. I’ve already got 3126 TH/T4 on the season, and I don’t want to break 3200 before the 3rd Annual Handville Super Trophy Classic Loppet .”
“Thats cool. Let’s go AquaJog”
Technically, I wasn’t entered in the canceled Sophomore year training camp race, so I’ve only had 1 canceled on account of cold. Senior year Keskinada double, however, was WAY to cold to be legal, and one of those races was a World Loppet!