What to do about this heat? After my disastrous run and flirtation with dehydration last weekend I have been doing some serious thinking about how I should adjust my training during the summer months.
I posted an impromptu poll over at coolrunning about cutting back my long runs and the responses were very consistent. Suck it up! (Paraphrased) Avoid the heat by running early in the morning or late in the evening, make sure you stay hydrated, maybe slow your pace a bit, but there is no need to take a step backwards in your training.
OK. Message received – loud and clear.
I should point out that I am not a morning person. I hate mornings. Because of this, prior to this year I did the majority of my running in the evening. The problem was that there are too many things to disrupt a routine training schedule when you run in the evening - social commitments, a higher probability of foul weather (in Florida anyway), fatigue after a long day at work, etc. I owe a lot of my success this year to finally transitioning to morning runs. I now consistently run 4 days per week and have only missed workouts over the past few months due to travel and minor injuries.
As much as I have grown to love running I still struggle to drag my butt out of bed virtually every morning. I cherish those few precious mornings I get to sleep in, but I am committed to persevering and improving this summer.
My nemesis is the snooze button.
I will resist it.
I will rise before the sun.
I will suck it up.
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Great post! Saw your blog address on on Active.com and decided to check it out. I know what you mean about the morning run -- sucks to get out of bed in the morning, but it's great to get the workout out of the way. I was the same as you -- preferring to workout at night -- until I joined a triathlon club that had all its workouts in the morning. Got used to it, and now I love it (although it's still hard). Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm looking into a local running club now, maybe that will help me too. I've been enjoying your contributions on Active for the past couple of months.
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