yesterday, after a rather hot ride, my Edge 1030 flashed a little notice that I was “25% adapted” to the heat. I have no idea where THAT came from. It made me feel better for wilting, though.
Haven’t played with the Garmin body temp app. Don’t know how they estimate core temp from HR, but I can’t imagine it’s super accurate at an individual level.
Garmin has the Tempe sensor which I’ve used for skin-temp readings indoors. Hook it to my HR band on the side of my chest. Can definitely see the massive difference from fan vs no-fan (like 32deg vs 26deg readings) and different clothing layers. But unfortunately it won’t connect to a Garmin that already has on-board temperature sensor, like most of the Edge units, so I haven’t used it out on the road.
Skin temp isn’t core temp, but it’s one part of the temperature gradient that’s relevant for how performance is limited by thermoregulation. Core temp basically reaches a limit that the body is unwilling to exceed, so performance and further heat generation will be throttled. A bigger gradient (greater difference in temp) from core to skin and the surrounding environment allows the body to shed heat faster, therefore perform more work at a higher rate of heat generation to match the rate of cooling.
Hence why fans to increase skin cooling are so critical for indoor performance.
OK here’s the graph as requested. Gray is estimated, and you can see how it seems to be be chained on a short leash to heart rate. The core sensor is properly far less volatile.
Just trying to understand, what is the actionable information one would seek to get from this if worn during exercise and 24/7?
I cannot control the outside temps, so I’m not sure what I would do with this information in that situation. Indoors I could probably tell without this if my cooling was adequate. Is this more for testing heat acclimation when preparing for an event like Kona?