Mantzios et al. 2022, Weather parameters and endurance running performance across disciplines

Discipline-specific analysis of 1258 championship races (1936 to 2019, 42 countries, 7867 athletes) across the marathon, 50 km and 20 km racewalks, 10000 m, 5000 m and 3000 m steeplechase (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 54(1):153–161). Air temperature was the most important weather predictor, with peak performance around a wet bulb globe temperature of 7.5 to 15 °C. The per-degree heat penalty above that optimum was strongly event-dependent and did not track distance neatly: the 50 km racewalk was most sensitive at about 1.1% per °C, the marathon about 0.2%, the 5000 m about 0.3% and the 10000 m least affected at about 0.04%; the steeplechase yielded no reliable model. Racewalking events were the most heat-vulnerable overall. Strong for the endurance track and road events; the first direct measurement of the 5000 m and 10000 m heat penalty in this bundle.