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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The last handful of weekend runs around my South Florida home area have been a brutal prelude to what the upcoming summer may be. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, it is only a matter of time before it reaches you. It depends on your latitude.
Both running injuries are very serious, but one of them may be fatal (Image by ChatGPT)
A running buddy recently invited me to join his team for the upcoming “Inferno 25K Club Championship” on July 18th in Southwest Florida. I was honored to be asked, but with that name, on that date, at that location, I happily declined.
Running safely in summer is feasible if you play it smart. You can plan accordingly, continue training for fall races and enjoy the process, or hibernate until October. Your choice. So, get acquainted with the signs of heat injury so you can act quickly for yourself or others.
The information in this blog post should not be considered medical advice. I am not a doctor or licensed healthcare professional. Always consult a qualified medical professional before making decisions related to health or treatment. With that out of the way, let’s go!
Understand the signs and symptoms of heat injuries, including heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Both are serious, but the latter can be fatal. A close friend survived heatstroke after final preparations were being made at the hospital.
According to the Mayo Clinic’s website, heat exhaustion is caused by exposure to elevated temperatures, particularly when combined with high humidity and strenuous physical activity. Without prompt treatment, it can turn into heatstroke, a life-threatening condition that can be prevented by avoiding entering the heat exhaustion zone in the first place.
Heatstroke, the most serious of heat injuries, is a condition caused by your body overheating, usually resulting from prolonged exposure to high temperatures and physical exertion.
Certain conditions and medications can increase your risk of heat-related illness. Ask your doctor whether any part of your medical history or current prescriptions could make you more susceptible to these conditions, given your level of physical activity during the warmer months.
Recognizing the symptoms of heat-related syndromes is crucial to avert tragedy.
Heat Exhaustion Symptoms
The evaporation of your sweat regulates your body temperature. However, when you exercise strenuously or otherwise overexert yourself in hot, humid weather, your core temperature (the body’s heat combined with environmental heat) fails to be regulated, preventing your body from cooling itself. A normal core temperature is around 98.6°F (37 °C). If you don’t address this situation immediately, it may progress to a dreaded heatstroke.
The symptoms of Heat Exhaustion are:
Cool, moist skin with goose bumps
Heavy sweating
Faintness
Dizziness
Fatigue
Weak, rapid pulse
Low blood pressure upon standing
Muscle cramps
Nausea
Headache
What to do if you feel any of these symptoms? Stop running immediately, move to a cooler place, drink cool water and/or sports drinks, and rest. If these symptoms don’t improve within an hour, contact a medical professional. Avoid an escalation into heatstroke at all costs.
Make sure you are aware of what this image states. It could save a life. No exaggeration
Heatstroke Symptoms
Heatstroke can quickly injure vital organs and requires immediate attention. Delayed treatment may cause extensive damage or even death.
The symptoms of Heatstroke are:
High body temperature (over 104°F or 40°C),
Altered mental state or behavior (Confusion, agitation, slurred speech, irritability, delirium, seizures),
Alteration in sweating (skin feels hot and dry to the touch),
Nausea and vomiting,
Flushed skin. (Skin may turn red as the body temperature increases),
Rapid breathing (rapid and shallow),
Racing heart rate (Pulse may significantly increase),
Headache (Throbbing).
How to Prevent Heat Injuries?
Be proactive for yourself and your running mates. Always err on the side of caution. Mayo Clinic recommends:
Wear loose-fitting, lightweight clothing,
Protect against sunburn,
Drink plenty of fluids,
Take extra precautions with certain medications (ask your doctor),
Take it easy during the hottest parts of the day,
Get acclimated to the new weather conditions.
During my seven years of blogging in this space, I’ve written many times about this subject. I urge you to revisit some of these writings, so you may prepare for the upcoming weather conditions. These are the links:
Last weekend gave us runners a preview of brutal summer weather in South Florida. It wasn’t as bad as mid-July, but in mid-May, it signaled what’s ahead. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, expect this soon.
Hydrate, sure, but don’t overhydrate (Image by Grok)
The line between toughness and doing something stupid is very thin, and if you cross it, you can get seriously hurt. So, my yearly blog post urging runners to stay on top of their training during the summer has been forced to be published earlier than expected.
Adjust your training and expectations for survival, not just performance. Heat injuries can permanently impact your health and your running future.
Here are five adjustments for safe training during the summer.
1 – Know what’s happening – You can’t fight the weather; you can only adjust for safe running. Two basic things occur:
1A – When air turns humid, it feels thicker, making each run more effortful. Running at the same speed takes more work.
1B – The second one is basic biology: The human body cools off by sweating, and the blood is about 92% water. The more you sweat without replenishing fluids, the more water gets sucked out of your bloodstream, and the thicker the blood becomes, the more difficult it is to circulate. This spells deep trouble.
2 – Adjust your running time – If the brutal summer is an unavoidable part of your home zip code, your options for outdoor running are reduced to: A- adjusting to run in the heat/humidity, or B- not running at all. If you choose A, you must do so at the coolest time possible, when it is gentler to the body. The basic choices are before sunrise or after sunset. Wake up earlier or wait until later. If you can’t, there is always a frightening Option C: The dreaded treadmill.
A good hack is to keep a running shirt and hat in the freezer and put them on right before you hit the road. This will cool your core and provide you with a few comfortable initial miles before the inevitable sets in.
3 – Slow your pace – Do you know why mainstream races take place in the fall or the spring? Who wants their goal race in the thick of a scorching summer? This is the time to get ready for the upcoming season; the time to tackle strength training and base building. The latter is achieved by running at a lower effort level, regardless of speed. Your fall and spring PRs are built during the summer. Don’t worry about what “the fast” people may think. Stop posting on Instagram if your followers’ opinions matter.
4 – Overhydration is a real danger – Your body is designed to lose fluids as you run, without replenishing every single drop of sweat. So, don’t fall into the temptation of overindulging in water or sports drinks. Hyponatremia is a serious condition that happens when too much fluid is ingested, diluting your sodium levels to the point that it may cause seizures, coma, and even death.
Hydration is not just about what you consume while running. Hydration is a 24/7 habit that has you ready to go by the time you press start in your GPS watch.
5 – Beware of the signs – The challenges of summer running go beyond training earlier, later, or slower. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are among the most serious dangers in inhospitable climates. It’s each runner’s responsibility to recognize the symptoms and adjust before it becomes a 911 call. With luck, a mishap may keep you out for a few weeks; without it, it could kill you. In a previous post, I wrote about heat exhaustion and heat stroke. I invite you to revisit it by clicking here.
In Conclusion
There are no medals or podiums during training. Be smart and remember you are only getting ready for next season.
Running in heat and humidity is doable if you prepare properly. Never lose sight of the fact that you need to live to run another day. As stated earlier, the line between toughness and doing something stupid is very thin, and if you cross it, you may get seriously hurt.
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