For anyone living in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer has been brutal. It gets sultrier year after year. In some areas, it’s the heat; in others, it is humidity; and in some, it is both. Conditions can get inhospitable and dangerous very quickly.
Always give yourself a way out if it is too hot for a safe run (Image by ChatGPT)
Last week I drove to my Thursday afternoon group run. As soon as I turned off the car’s air conditioning and set foot out in the open, I realized this was not happening. I decided to walk. I did so with one of my athletes and discussed her upcoming racing schedule. We walked for about an hour, got back drenched, and I was at peace with my decision. As I checked the temperature and humidity afterward, I learned the heat index was 98º (36.7ºC). Inhuman conditions.
I’ve already written about training in the heat this year (click here to read). Still, this experience got me thinking, yet once again, about accepting that I’ll survive the season rather than focusing on the metrics as a measure of success as if the temperature were 30 degrees lower (17ºC).
Alex Beach, a 2:24 marathoner based in South Florida, recently posted the following thought on Instagram: “I’m training year-round in a hot environment (Miami). Understanding the aerobic work you’re getting and not putting too much stress on hitting specific paces every workout in the heat allows you to avoid issues with overtraining.”
Running in the summer requires heavy adjustments. The weather is not just the temperature. It includes atmospheric pressure, visibility, pollen count, and more. When it comes to running, we must expand our perspective beyond temperature and, at the bare minimum, include wind and humidity in the equation.
What Happens to Your Body in the Heat?
Your body goes into overdrive to keep you cool during summer running (Image by Grok)
As a runner, you must understand the physiology of training in severe heat. When you run in hot weather, your body works harder to keep itself cool. As your core temperature rises, your muscles become less efficient, you fatigue sooner, and your overall performance inevitably declines. Accept it.
To prevent overheating, your body redirects blood to your skin, blood that would normally supply oxygen to your working muscles. From the skin, the heat is released. In dry conditions, sweat evaporates, and you cool down. In humid weather, that sweat doesn’t evaporate as easily, making it much harder for your body to regulate its temperature. That’s why running in heat and humidity feels significantly tougher than running in dry heat, even at the same pace.
So, account for that reality and focus on effort rather than metrics. The people you’re trying to impress on Instagram don’t know you, won’t visit you in the hospital if you suffer heat stroke. They certainly won’t help pay your medical bills.
What to do when it is too hot to run outside?
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard on summer training comes from Steve Magness, a renowned running coach, author, and performance expert who has guided athletes from high school to the Olympic level. His recommendation is simple: always give yourself a way out.
He explains how in extreme heat and humidity, it’s much easier to dig yourself into a hole that can take days, or even weeks, to recover from. Instead of stubbornly forcing yourself to complete every mile exactly as planned, build flexibility into your workouts. Rather than committing to a continuous hard workout, consider breaking it into shorter intervals with brief recovery periods. If your body is sending warning signs, don’t be afraid to stop early. Adjusting a workout isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a smart decision that allows you to recover, stay consistent, and be ready for your next quality session. Summer training rewards athletes who know when to push and, just as importantly, when to back off.
In conclusion: Don’t try to be a hero. No PR is worth a heat injury. No social media post is worth a health breakdown. No Strava kudos are worth an ambulance ride. Be smart, play it safe, and always live to run another day.
Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.
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The Surprising Synchrony Between Running and Your Professional Life
By Arijit Gosh*
There is a moment every runner knows. You are three kilometers from home, your legs are heavy, your lungs are burning, and every rational thought is telling you to stop. But you don’t. You recalibrate, find your rhythm, and keep moving.
The discipline you build on the road bleeds into everything else. (Image by ChatGPT)
That moment, quiet, unglamorous, entirely personal, is also one of the finest pieces of professional training you will ever have.
Running and your professional life are, at their core, training the same person.
The Miles You Log in Private Shape Who You Are at Work
It does not matter whether you are a teacher, a nurse, a freelancer, or a small-team manager. The discipline you build on the road bleeds into everything else.
Running teaches you to delay gratification. You do not get fitter in a week. You do not see the results of your consistency until you have quietly stacked dozens of sessions together, and then one day, almost without warning, you run a distance that would have broken you six months ago. Professional growth works exactly the same way. The people who seem to leap forward are almost always the ones who were doing invisible, unglamorous work long before anyone noticed.
Running teaches you to sit with discomfort. Not to enjoy it but to stop fearing it. And when you stop fearing discomfort in your professional life, your relationship with hard conversations, difficult projects, and uncertain outcomes changes completely.
Science Is on Your Side
Here is something worth knowing: exercise reduces cortisol, your primary stress hormone. It also stimulates the production of BDNF, a protein that supports brain function, memory, and focus. Runners who train consistently often find themselves sharper in their thinking, calmer under pressure, and better at bouncing back from setbacks.
This is not a coincidence. You are literally building a more resilient mind every time you lace up and head out the door.
Discipline Is the Common Currency
The most important thing running and professional life share is not motivation. Motivation is unreliable. It shows up when conditions are good and disappears the moment things get hard. What both demand, in the long run, is consistency.
Showing up on the days you do not feel like it. Sticking to a plan even when progress feels invisible. Trusting the process when the results are not yet visible.
Every runner who has trained through a grey November morning or found time for a lunchtime run during a chaotic week, understands this intuitively. You are not only training your cardiovascular system. You are training your relationship with commitment itself.
What Running Teaches Us About Balance
The discipline of long-distance running transforms professional performance, builds resilience, reduces cortisol, and boosts focus (Image by Grok)
One of the most underrated lessons in running is this: Recovery is not weakness. Rest days exist for a reason. Overtraining does not make you faster; it breaks you down. The adaptation happens during rest, not during effort.
The same truth applies to professional life. Burning yourself out is not a badge of honor. The people who sustain long, meaningful careers are rarely those who ran the hardest in their twenties and burned out by forty. They are the ones who learned to manage their energy as carefully as their effort.
Running gives you a built-in framework for this. Easy days. Hard days. Recovery weeks. Long runs that build your base. It is a rhythm, and once you start applying that rhythm to how you manage your professional energy, something shifts.
The Bottom Line
Running is not only for elite athletes or people chasing podiums. It belongs to anyone willing to show up, do the work and trust that consistency compounds over time.
This is not a running philosophy. This is a life philosophy.
So, the next time you are out on a long run and things get tough, notice what you do. Because the way you run is probably a lot like the way you work. And both are worth running well.
*Arijit Ghosh is the founder of Fitness Fortitude, a platform based in India focused on connecting fitness professionals, sports coaches, athletes, and working professionals with science-based training and coaching. His background combines corporate strategy and fitness, which is a recurring theme in his content.
A few days ago, I was leaving the place where I usually have breakfast and was about to turn left to merge into traffic. So, naturally, I was looking to my right to make sure it was safe to hit the gas pedal. As the car accelerated, a startled runner coming from my left appeared in front of my windshield. Thank God I was alert and was able to hit the brakes in time.
It is your responsibility to be seen by a driver; you don’t want to find out why (Image by ChatGPT)
The runner bitched at me. I lowered the window and yelled, “You must make sure I see you”. Then he told me I’m number one, and we parted ways.
Should I have looked both ways before making sure the road was clear? Sure. But the key message from this story is not who’s at fault. It is that if I hit you with my car, unless you are from Planet Krypton, you are losing that battle. You must internalize this basic safety concept.
I can’t believe I have to write about this, because so many runners out there insist on exercising their right of way based on principle rather than their own well-being.
I worked in the construction industry for quite a while, and there are two things safety experts drill into their workers. Their extrapolation perfectly applies to running on the road.
► Safety is my responsibility: It doesn’t matter how much effort your contractor puts into maintaining a safe jobsite or safety culture environment. If you don’t wear your PPE (personal protective equipment), you will get hurt. Stories of workers getting seriously injured, or worse, for not wearing their PPE are not rare occurrences.
► Who are you going home to? You leave for work, say goodbye to your loved ones, and they expect you to come back home. Never forget that. Do all you can to ensure that you are indeed returning.
Now that these two paramount safety principles have been established, let’s deconstruct the basic steps to cross paths in front of a car merging into traffic.
How to Ensure a Driver Sees You
► Accept that regardless of who is right, if a car/truck/motorcycle hits you, you will be on the losing end of the accident.
► Look for the driver and check where they are focusing their attention. Are they playing with a phone? Are they looking at both ways?
► Put yourself in the driver’s seat. Identify the situation so you may visualize the outcomes, react accordingly, and enhance your chances of being seen and continuing uneventfully.
► Make eye contact with the driver and don’t assume you have been seen. Wait for an acknowledgment.
► If the driver hasn’t seen you, wave your arms or yell if the window is open, and then wait for acknowledgment.
► Once you know 100% that you have been seen, then you may cross in front of the vehicle. Make sure you point at the driver if additional runners are coming behind you.
► Thank the driver for allowing you to pass through safely.
If any of these conditions are not met, you stop and wait for the car to do its thing. Or, if it is safe to do so, go behind the car and continue your merry way. Tragedy avoided.
Even if you have the right of way, you must ensure the drivers have seen you (Image by ChatGPT).
One more thing:
Since we are on the subject, when crossing a street on a red light, even if you have the right of way, ensure the drivers in the first row see you. The last thing you want is the light suddenly turning green and a distracted driver discovering you are on their path when it is too late to brake.
I understand this blog post is uncomfortable, but I’ve seen so many close calls lately and just had one. So, I’d rather write about an unpleasant subject and force you to think about the issue than learn that you were involved in a sad incident.
Share your tips or experiences on running safety in the comment box below. I read all your comments.
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If you are a professional athlete or are trying to qualify for the Olympics, feel free to skip this post. If you are still with me, maybe running is your passion, your escape, your health/therapy plan, and/or your social club. And even if some of us would love running to be a more prominent part of our lives, the activity that pays our bills and allows us to afford it must (and should) take priority.
Understanding what you want to accomplish from your run is key (Image by ChatGPT)
This is why we tend to overlook certain aspects of our daily life that, by now, should have become ingrained habits. Such failures keep some of us in a stale or unproductive state, which eventually may develop into frustration.
Behavior becomes a habit through repetition. When we perform the same action repeatedly in response to a specific cue, our brain gradually automates the behavior, requiring less conscious effort each time. According to a 2010 study published by University College London, the average time for a behavior to become a habit is 66 days.
So, it will take some work, but once it is ingrained, you are on your way to becoming a better runner.
Here are 5 conducts that should become habits for every runner:
► Preparation Before Every Workout – Just like in every aspect of life, preparedness is the key to success. Just as having water and a dry shirt after your run is essential, knowing what you want to accomplish before every workout is a key to success. The time to learn what you are doing today, or to realize you have not eaten in the last 12 hours, is not when your watch searches for a satellite. Every workout has a purpose, and understanding what that is will give you a better chance of realizing that gain. Preparation encompasses the mental and physical aspects of your running.
► Focus on Improvement, not Just Results – In the instant gratification age of Strava and Instagram, many runners tend to focus on what they did today, forgetting that running is a long game. Try this experiment: Don’t post a run. Or two. And count how many of your online friends text you asking if you are OK. Then realize how trivial this is within the context of your daily life and refocus your energy on achieving your real goals. Revolutionary thought. I know!
► Embrace Failure as Part of Growth – Failure is an opportunity to learn, adjust, and improve. Every athlete who has ever achieved anything meaningful has experienced setbacks along the way. Missed goals, bad races, disappointing workouts, and unexpected obstacles are not signs of a lack of talent or potential. They are part of the process. When things do not go your way, resist the urge to make excuses or focus solely on the result. Instead, take an honest look at what happened, identify the lessons, and apply them moving forward. The most successful athletes are not the ones who avoid failure. They are the ones who fail and use it as fuel for future success. Click here to read my blog post on this topic.
► Reframing Your Self-Talk – The conversation you have with yourself matters. While negative thoughts are inevitable even for elite athletes, the key is not to let them take control. Instead of dwelling on “I can’t do this” or “I’m falling apart,” strong athletes consciously reframe those thoughts into more productive ones, such as “I’ve handled this before” or “Just get to the next mile.” Positive self-talk is not about pretending everything is fine. It is about choosing thoughts that help rather than hinder performance. Over time, this habit builds confidence, resilience, and the ability to stay focused when training or racing gets difficult. Click here to read my blog post on this topic.
► Mastering the Breathing – When you start your run, your oxygen intake can multiply from 15 to 20 times. This is why you feel winded as you get started, and the reason why warming up properly during this transition is critical for the rest of your run. From there on, settling into a controlled breathing pattern is critical. I personally recommend the 3-2 rhythm, which distributes the most vulnerable part of the breathing cycle evenly. Click here to read about breathing patterns.
For some, these five habits may feel like stating the obvious. And they are. But I see so many seasoned runners failing due to a lack of basic habits. Not because they are lazy or because they don’t care, but because life gets in the way and they don’t know how to handle it. Once you are purposeful in your behavior, habits will take root and set you on the path to success.
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I joke (partially) with my running buddies that the day I ran against Eliud Kipchoge in Berlin (2017), he needed a world record to beat me. Sure, I started in wave 4 and was 15 miles behind when he crossed the finish line, and while I certainly had no chance of beating him, the statement is still 100% true.
All you need is the will to go for a run. Everything else is additional (Image by Grok)
Consider this: what are your chances of standing in the huddle in a Super Bowl, strategizing the next play? When will you face Shohei Ohtani on an MLB field? How about your odds of standing with or against Lio Messi during the World Cup? Driving in an F1 Grand Prix? US Open. Golf or tennis?… Anyone?
But running is different. When the marathon’s 2-hour mark was broken, a runner I trained was there. When Kipchoge broke his last world record (Berlin 2022), another runner I trained was there. During the epic battle between Alberto Salazar and Rodolfo Gomez at the 1982 NYC Marathon, my dad was there. A close friend crossed the finish line in Boston, 10 minutes before the bombing. The last time the immortal Bill Rodgers won a marathon (Orange Bowl 1983), he had to beat me, too.
So, you get the point. Running is the most democratic of sports. The one with the most open access, equal opportunity to participate, low barriers of entry, and outcomes driven mostly by effort rather than status.
Remember dreaming of running, or lacing your shoes for the first time? Or how you felt after a long hiatus? Remember the struggle to finish that first long run? Have you checked the back of the packers at a race? Have you taken the time to watch the videos of the last finishers at a big-city marathon? Is there any other sport where regular people, even with a variety of disabilities, can beat the odds by finishing the biggest and most iconic races in the world?
Sure, only a selected few will run in the Olympics or the world championships, but even you, dear reader, can run the mythic Boston Marathon, even if you don’t qualify. We know you have a better chance of hitting the Powerball than the London Marathon Lottery, but the chance is there, and you still have charity entries. And if you are not into multitudinous mega races, there are local 5Ks everywhere, every week.
In his book “When Running Made History”, literature professor and former elite runner Roger Robinson said: “Being a runner (this sounds naive but isn’t) gives you direct and unfiltered access to all other runners. That’s one thing that makes running so remarkable; it is an intensely competitive sport that is also an egalitarian community. Just put your shorts and shoes on and if you’re fast enough, you can run with, befriend, and, if so inclined, interview the greatest celebrities on earth.”
In running, you will only get out what you put into it (Image by Grok)
Think about it: when it comes to running, you don’t need an opposing team or a field. Let alone a golf course. You don’t need a court, like tennis, basketball, or pickleball. You don’t even need a group of friends or a rival. All you need is the will to run. Everything else, everything, is extra.
You can run in the crappiest of shoes, or even barefoot. You can run in jeans and cotton socks if that is all you have. You don’t need a watch, you don’t need company, and you don’t need a dedicated surface or place. The comfort of a good pair of running shoes, a tech shirt/shorts, moisture-wicking socks, and a running path with good friends will surely make it more enjoyable, but as for requirements, none beyond your willingness to go out for a run.
Biologist and 2:22 marathoner Bernd Heinrich wrote in Why We Run: A Natural History: “Running is perhaps the most fundamental of all sports… it is the most democratic and most competitive of all sports because individual merit can prevail despite economic equality. It is a sport for everyone, the whole world over.”
Meritocracy in action. What a beautiful concept!
The great running author and philosopher George Sheehan said, “Life is a positive-sum game. Everyone from the gold medalist to the last finisher can rejoice in a personal victory.”
Fred Lebow, the father of the NYC Marathon, said, “In running, it doesn’t matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, ‘I have finished.'”
Beyond the health and social benefits, running is a sport where you can only get out as much as you put in. The one sport where we have the chance to participate in the biggest local, national, and international competitions. The one we can practice at a moment’s notice, just when we need it. Yes, need it. The one where the winner and the last one across the finish line get the same medal. The one where we can make friendships to last a lifetime.
Let’s go for a run, then. What are you waiting for?
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