Under the guidance of Dr Lee Taylor a Senior Lecturer in Exercise Physiology at the University and his team (Jeffrey Aldous, Hannah Marshall and Diogo Leal), ten heat acclimation sessions were conducted over a two week period to improve both Reece and Lucy’s tolerance to the hot and humid environment they are likely to experience in Kona.

Dr Taylor said: “The environmental chamber at the University of Bedfordshire is a great facility for elite and amateur athletes to acclimate to extreme conditions, hopefully giving them a competitive advantage on race day.

“It is also a great facility for our students during teaching and for our staff to conduct their research.”

The environmental chamber, situated within the University’s Sport Science and Physical Activity department’s sport and exercise science laboratories, allows athletes and teams to prepare for a variety of environments including extreme hot, humid, cold and hypoxic conditions.

Training in these extreme environments has been shown to improve athletic performance.

Over the course of the ten sessions Reece’s core temperature has dropped from 37.5 to 36.4, meaning he has acclimatised to the heat and can concentrate on the championships, rather than the humidity on race day.

“The biggest goal for me would be to race at the World Championships to my full potential. I feel like I was unprepared for the last World Championships, I didn’t have any prior heat acclimation and I feel like my race suffered as a result,” said Reece

“So this, for me, is a massive confidence boost going into the race. I feel like I have probably got myself in a better position than I did at the last World Championships.”

Lucy echoed this sentiment saying: “I did still manage to win my age group at the last World Championships so this time I will be looking to replicate that. I feel that by having this chamber here and with the heat training that we have done, I will have a huge advantage over my competitors.”