It was only a week or so back and I was complaining about the rain and the constant cloudiness, and now i’m regretting that I can’t go back to it. Running and training (especially marathon training) in the heat is actually a better workout once your body becomes acclimated to the heat. Even though I get out pretty early (especially on weekends), its still warm, I couldn’t even imagine how hot it gets for the people I see out running at noon or 2pm in the afternoon. Alot of it depends on the distance you’re running though, i’m at a point that my shortest run of the week is around 6 miles, so others might not be out as long as I am, that could be the difference.

So how do I marathon train in the blazing heat? Heres my advice:

1. dress accordingly .. light clothes, singlet if possible (i’m not a ‘no shirt’ guy)
2. body glide .. lots of it (use vaseline as well). You will chafe in those special places, trust me.
3. get out early.. I find that getting out before 5:30am tends to keep you somewhat cooler for at least the first couple miles.
4. drink plenty of fluids the night before
5. DON’T STOP! Regardless of how hot you get, if you stop, it’ll only get worse. If you absolutely feel that bad, stop but find cover somewhat so the sun doesn’t continually beat on you
6. use suntan lotion, it helps reflect and not allow the suns rays to heat you up. I’m not sure that i’m convinced this works, but I can’t dispute it.

Hopefully you’ll find some value in my advice, it works for me and i’m running quite a bit in the heat these days.

So I took a different route today for my 10 miler, and although I expected to do a tempo run, it really turned out to be more of a hill workout than anything. I’m finding that its difficult to do the old tempo run these days since I don’t have anywhere flat to go, nor do I have a measured mile like I used to have before I moved. I expect to add another mile to my Sunday run this coming week, and some more speed to my 10 milers this week as well. I was supposed to be doing that this past week, but it never seemed to have happened, so we have to kick it up a notch. For being 7 weeks into training, I think things are going well, I’ve fallen into a decent pace, gotten comfortable with the long run again (and the fueling during it) and haven’t suffered any specific injury as of yet. Hopefully we can keep it up for the fall marathon season so we can do well …

For some reason I found myself over in the Runners World forums reading about people who are against others doing multiple marathons. My opinion is that its my business to do them if I want, and I enjoy them. The best part about training is that you really learn your body and you know when enough is enough. Its a tough road to train up to the first marathon, but after that, its not too bad because its a constant mix of recovery and getting ready for the next marathon and by October, its cooling off finally.

Well enough about the fall, lets just enjoy the training ..