"Whether the Weather"

Let's face it, no matter where we live, our weather can have extreme swings that can wreak havoc on our training schedules. It's how we weather those changes, and whether or not we decide to alter our schedules on those days (for better or worse), that can be very important factors in our success.

Take my hometown, Houston, Texas, for example. As I type this, it's approaching the first full week of October, and you would think the weather would be cooler. Last week we had a stretch of 2-3 days where the morning temperatures were in the 60's and the afternoon temperatures only in the mid-80's, which was great compared to what it had been (heat indexes consistently over 100). For those of you in northern states, you probably haven't seen temperatures that high for a month or so already, but you have snow coming up, so you know what I mean. Anyway, back to Houston, the forecast for the first week of October is to have morning temperatures in the mid-to-high 70's (that's before the sun comes up and the humidity will be 90-100% at that time) and afternoon high's in the low 90's (that means a heat index of 95+), so at least for the first week it will remain unseasonably warm.

But what about my all-important training schedule? Good grief, it's already October, the Houston Marathon (which is what most people in this area are training for right now) is only 3 1/2 months away, and there are several races between 10 miles and 30K (18.6 miles) starting within the next 2 weeks, and it is VERY hard to get in a run of 10+ miles as a long run in these conditions. So what do I do? I change my schedule to simply do the most miles that my body can handle due to the temperatures. Instead of doing 100% of the miles I would normally do in a week, I might cut that back to 75-80% and just accept it. It's the smart thing to do, but very hard to make yourself do it.

Here's the important one, read this part carefully and then read it again... On each run, I am not only training based on the conditions for that specific day, but I am also training in anticipation of what the weather will be on my next 2-3 runs. Here's an example of what I mean: During the last week of September I was at the end of a really strong training week, and I had my long run of about 12+ miles planned for Saturday. However, when I woke up that morning, the heat index was already almost 85, the humidity was 96%, and the sun had not even come up yet. I looked at the weather and saw where that night we were going to have a cool front come through (the next day it would be about 65 in the morning and a high of around 80). So what did I do? As hard as it was, I made the smart decision not to run at all on Saturday. I waited until Sunday morning and ended up having a GREAT 12+ mile run. Because I was smart, I kept myself from having a miserable experience on Saturday and not being able to recover in time for my Monday run.

Another thing to consider in the fall, especially since this is the time of year when races start to pop up on our schedules, is to make sure that ALL of your training runs the week before the race are geared to the weather forecast on the day of your race, not the day of your training runs. In other words, if your race is on Saturday and the forecast is for warm or not good conditions on race day, but you have a training run on Wednesday and the weather is great that day, do NOT overdo it on that Wednesday run just because the conditions are good. Run it as if you are saving yourself for Saturday, because in reality that's the day that counts.

In 1992, one of the stupidest training runs I ever did came the week of the Houston Marathon. It was going to be my 3rd marathon, and my training had been the best it had ever been to date, and I was strong and in great shape. I was so excited about the race and went out on a not-so-great weather day on the Thursday before the Sunday race for what should have been an easy taper run. Instead, I ran in an area where there were hundreds of other runners around, started fantasizing about how great my time would be, and before I knew it, I had run a fast 12 miles in warm conditions, and the forecast for race day was perfect. Needless to say, I ruined any chance I had of making my goal time on that day and ended up about 10-15 minutes slower than what I thought I would be able to do.

One final thing... If the weather on the day of the race is just not conducive to a good time on the clock, then just accept it, leave your ego at home, and go out and enjoy the fact that you have trained to get there. I have had miserable races where the conditions were awful, but I was too stubborn to slow down because I had a PR goal time in my brain, and ended up crashing and burning and not having a good experience. The smartest race I ever ran was the Houston Marathon in 2001. I was trying to qualify for my second Boston Marathon that April and was in shape to make the time I needed. At about the 4-6 mile mark, the sun started to come out and the cloud cover started to burn off. I looked around me and saw people starting to sweat pretty good (myself included), and we still had 20 miles to go. I made the difficult but intelligent decision at that point to slow WAY down and save myself for the Austin Marathon which was 5 weeks away. I ended up having an enjoyable Houston Marathon even though it was 10 minutes slower than what I had planned, and had saved myself enough to where I was able to run a PR and qualify for Boston at the Austin Marathon the next month.

Moral of the story: Whether you weather the weather is key in whether or not you are successful.