I live far enough north that my mornings have still been relatively cool. So I’ve been prioritizing running early. My afternoons and evenings have been pretty uncomfortable. So we’ve had to skip some of our daily evening dog walks.
First thing I do is run right when the sun goes down. It’s cooler, less people driving around in the neighborhood, and I don’t have to put on sunscreen.
Then if it’s still hot, I run slower. Distance means more to me than speed.
I live in the tropics where it is hot and humid year round. Personally I would keep the distance but run slower.
Run either very late or very early to avoid the afternoon heat
Stay hydrated, drink a lot throughout the day and not just before running!
Use isotonic drinks or mix some salt into your water to keep electrolytes high when sweating
Don’t blame yourself for stagnating or reduced performance! I found that between running in the morning and afternoon here the heat and humidity alone can raise your heart rate by 10bpm!
I’ve been going super early in the morning. I’m doing pretty good keeping pace and mileage goals. I’m just no fun for my friends anymore, no drinks and in bed by 9!
Yeah, I understand that, but it’s a no go for me. I would have to wake up at 3am to eat a breakfast, do some prep work and then go for a run. I feel like this would completely kill the day for me.
There’s a large green space near me that I like to lap for medium-to-long runs, & I swear it manages to somehow maintain a headwind the whole way around. I have no idea how.
Night runs sound really cool, I will have to try it myself one day. But I’m running in my local forest/plains, with no lights. I tried it few times in winter with headlamp, but I just can’t enjoy the run, when I’m not seeing my surroundings.
I actually do this a lot in winter. You have to find a lamp that works for you (brightness, the feel on your head), and I’d recommend running like this only on routes you already know well.
Naturally the pace will be slower than in the daylight, unless you have no self-preservation instinct, but it’s a different kind of magic when the world shrinks to just you and the small bubble of light in front of you.
My speed definitely drops by a lot in the summer. Fall is amazing because I always feel like I have superpowers, the same effort gets me so much more speed!
On the worst days I’ve been wearing a vest running vest which I keep in the freezer and fill with handfuls of ice, but my personal circumstances force me to run in the heat of day so this may not be as needed if you just run at night.
Wow. I am the complete opposite. I jog daily and feel miserable October thru June (and sometimes July). But in heatwaves (when the daily high reaches 90s-100s F (20s - 40s C)) I actually start to enjoy exercising and sometimes even wish I could work out longer.
Then again, I usually work out in the morning. But I also enjoy workouts in high temps as well.
Pretty miserably! Doing my usual distance and keeping my pace as much as possible, but I’ve definitely slowed down by 10-20 seconds/mile. I’m trying to maintain as well as possible because I have a marathon in October.
The worst part is, that I can’t even convince myself to do some intervals training. I just can’t do sprints in this weather. And I feel that this is really taking a toll at my tempo.
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