Whilst most of us moan about running when it’s freezing cold outside, as soon as there’s a bit of heat, the complaints of being too hot to run soon rise like the temperature. If you’ve found yourself stopping, giving up or making excuses to not run because of warm weather, I’ll provide some points for thought, and hopefully not make you want to tell me where to go.

 

Heat is inevitable

Whilst we don’t get a huge amount of time with warm weather in the UK, the heat we do experience will cause physiological changes to happen in our body that make running that bit harder. That I’ll grant you, and absolutely agree that it’s unpleasant at times.

What isn’t inevitable, is the way we think about the change of weather and summer running.

 

Don’t abandon your goals

In the same way that Spring marathon times are earned in the winter, the chance of a PB in an Autumn marathon has to be earned during Summer.

Your running might well take a hit in the short term, with paces and times slowing rather than progressing, despite a lot of hard work. That doesn’t mean it’s wasted though, all it means is that the conditions aren’t allowing it to show. As soon as a cooler day or time of year comes around, you’ll be flying… at least you will if you keep training well during Summer.

 

Be aware of your spheres

A popular and effective way to look at internal and external factors for a given subject are spheres of influence and spheres of concern.

As the names allude to, your sphere of concern is everything that will affect you, whether it’s in your control or not. Hot weather, wind, who else is racing, the hard hills in the route are all part of spheres of concern. Your sphere influence is what you have direct control over. Things like your mindset, your effort, your planning and preparedness for the conditions.

The closer you can bring the two spheres together the better. That’s not to say you should try to control everything or do a rain dance in the hopes of cooling temperatures on a hot day. What I mean is that we just need to consider the situation. Lower race time targets against what you know you can do on a perfect day. Hydrate well and ensure you still eat plenty since you might not want to if you’re drinking more than normal.

 

What to take away from hot running

Ultimately tough conditions and circumstances of any type can be learned and gained from. Not that it’ll necessarily be easy, but it’s possible and often not unreasonable, especially since we’re amateur athletes, doing something we’re meant to enjoy. Learn to bring your spheres of concern and influence closer together by letting go of worries about things you can’t control. Plan and prepare for what you can, both in training and racing as these are skills that’ll be useful at other times, which means you can then optimise an already good set of circumstances.

 

To borrow a term from the book “The Brave Athlete” by Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson, everyone has “legit quits” when it’s just not sensible to continue, but try to avoid “shit quits” where you just give in because it’s not going perfectly to plan.

 

Written by Kyle Brooks, Running Coach based in Norwich, Norfolk