In this monthly article series, ultrarunner, race director, and coach Gabe Joyes answers reader questions about anything and everything running. Learn more about this ask-the-athlete column, and be sure to fill out the form below to submit your questions for a future article!
In this article, Gabe answers questions about dressing for hot weather, vertcovery, training data, and more.
Gabe’s Tip of the Month
Back in the day, I used to be heavily involved in music — I played the saxophone, the violin, and even conducted a full orchestra once. Something we used to practice was the concept of sight reading, where the goal was to read through a piece of music only once and attempt to play it as perfectly as possible on the first go. I’ve applied this concept to trail running training, and it is both helpful, fun, and refreshing. Many of us run the same local trails over and over again and probably have every single rock and foot placement memorized. One can only improve their trail skills so much by running the same trail repetitively, so I’ve made a point to practice “sight reading” on as many different trails as I can. Even if the trails are not the most inspiring or my preferred style, attempting to flow through an unfamiliar and rocky singletrack on the first try is an excellent and fun way to build skills.
Peter Baxter practicing his trail sight reading skills on Orcas Island. Photo: Somer Kreisman
How Much Do You Walk?
Hey Gabe! I’m a Brazilian runner, migrating from street to trail and, hopefully, to mountain running. My question to you may be naïve, but how much of your running on the trails is not actually a run? How often or for how long do you need to walk or even rest on a race of, let’s say, 100k? I’m asking this because it seems that walking in a road race almost never happens, especially among the fully trained and prepared folks. – Fernando
Not naïve at all, Fernando! My first suggestion is to reframe how you think about walking (or hiking) during a trail event, and especially a long race like a 100k. I don’t even think about hiking as “taking a rest,” but rather as just the most efficient way to move at a given moment. Just in the same way a cyclist might downshift gears while going up a climb, we downshift to a hike while climbing to maximize efficiency as well.
How much we hike will vary based on how steep the terrain is, how much fatigue we have, how fueled and/or hydrated we are, or even what the current weather conditions are. I have a favorite trail loop that has about 3,000 feet of climbing in nine miles, and even though I am capable of running every single step of it, I maybe only do that once per year due to all the factors listed above. My best advice is to think about keeping your effort consistent and not worry if that looks like running or hiking — just aim to be smooth, steady, and efficient!
Kelly Halpin downshifting to a hike in the Tetons. All photos courtesy of Gabe Joyes, unless otherwise noted.
Dressing for Heat
What are your thoughts on sun shirts and ultrarunning? Do they actually help keep runners cooler? Do they help with sunburn? – Anonymous
Before we answer that question, let’s consider how clothing impacts our temperature. According to the book “Keeping Dry and Staying Warm,” (1) clothing of any material works as an insulator because it traps small pockets of air around our bodies. In a sunless environment, heat exclusively comes from our own bodies through metabolism. In the context of ultrarunning, our bodies put out a ton of heat! Any sort of clothing we might wear, regardless of the material, will trap some of that heat from our bodies.
Our bodies primarily work to reduce temperature through evaporative cooling, the process by which we sweat, and then when the sweat evaporates, heat is pulled away from our skin. Any clothing material, to some degree, also reduces our bodies’ ability to utilize the evaporative cooling process. Most of us don’t run in a sunless environment, so if you are running uphill on a sun drenched and open slope, burning through 90 to 120 grams of carbs per hour, you are gaining warmth from both the sun and your own body — in this scenario I can’t think of any way that a sun shirt keeps you cooler.
Interestingly, a 1980 study that was published in “Nature,” Vol 283 (2), showed that Bedouin robes, worn by indigenous people of southwest Asia, do indeed help wearers manage temperature because they “are worn loose. Inside, the cooling happens by convection — either through bellows action, as the robes flow in the wind, or by a chimney sort of effect, as air rises between robe and skin.” It is important to note here that the Bedouin generally do not wear backpacks, especially skin-fit running vests, that inhibit the convective cooling process.
If you are wearing a sun shirt to protect your skin from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, you will fare better, as a sun shirt with a UPF rating of 50 will block 98% of the sun’s radiation and will definitely help prevent sunburn. If you are in a situation where you are not able to apply sunscreen, or wish not to use sunscreen, a sun shirt will certainly help protect your skin.
My own personal take is that overheating is ultimately one of the biggest reasons that people do not achieve their goals on race day. Overheating leads to impaired athletic performance, and frequently leads to dehydration, which leads to digestive issues, and can even lead to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. If it is possible that a garment can make me warmer while running at all, frankly, I’m not wearing it, and I’ll explore a different option for skin protection from ultraviolet rays. I do enjoy wearing a loose-fitting sun shirt if I am hanging out at a high-altitude lake with my family and I am not wearing a pack, but for running trails, I definitely prefer to take advantage of our bodies’ natural evaporative cooling process.
Ty Draney utilizing a sun shirt in western Wyoming.
Vertcovery
I have seen the workout “vertcovery” on your Strava. Help me to understand what this is. When do you insert it into the program? What is it supposed to accomplish? What level of effort should I do it at? – Josh
Vert + Recovery = Vertcovery, and it is actually a thing! I have to credit my former coach and ultrarunning legend Duncan Callahan for this idea. Duncan had me running tons of flat and faster intervals, and as someone who was more used to high volume and high vert running, these speedy intervals, that were sometimes two days in a row, were really challenging for me both physically and mentally. Perhaps Duncan was trying to just appease me, but regardless, vertcovery was born.
The low intensity, very steep uphill hiking and easy shuffle running back down was so muscularly different from the interval training that I was doing that it basically functioned as cross-training. Vertcovery only works if it is different enough from your regular training, if steep terrain is something you are already comfortable with, and if you are honest about keeping the intensity low. The vertcovery approach does not work if you are not able to keep your effort in check and are sucking wind on every climb, or if it is used to be a Strava hero and just pile more vert on. For vertcovery to actually be a recovery tool, the timing, intensity, and training history all have to be just right.
Your author getting in some vertcovery.
Trail Running Data
I’d love to know what data fields you use for tracking your trail running training. – Luke
Using only one variable — miles, time, or elevation gain, for instance — just doesn’t tell enough of the story when it comes to trail running. A flat and smooth, paved mile is night and day different from a rocky, steep, mountainous mile. I tend to think in multiple variables at once, mostly in terms of feet per mile, terrain, and time. To calculate feet per mile, take the total elevation climbed divided by the number of miles. So a 10-mile run with 2,250 feet of climbing gains an average of 225 feet per mile.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story either, because that climbing and descending could be on a dirt road, a rocky trail, or even a frozen and slippery fast snow-packed trail like you might find at a Running Up For Air event. These conditions will all greatly impact both your climbing and especially descending speed, so it is important to consider what you are preparing for. Lastly, I do pay attention to time as well, because our bodies can only take so many hours of exercise in a given week. To be totally honest, I hardly ever think about the total number of miles I run per week because that one single data field really just doesn’t tell us all that much about training.
Jenny Joyes using all of the data fields in the Wind River Mountains.
Notes/References
- Outdoor Gear Coach. Keeping Dry & Staying Warm (Part 1): How to stay dry, warm …. Outdoor Gear Coach, 2020.
- Dmi’el, Razi, et al. “Is a Black Coat in the Desert a Means of Saving Metabolic Energy?” Nature, vol. 283, no. 5749, Feb. 1980, pp. 761–762, https://doi.org/10.1038/283761a0. Accessed 17 June 2025.
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Call for Comments
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