The last two days have been bonus days for running. I was off yesterday and today’s Saturday, so I could start later. And the temperature was almost perfect for a run. That won’t be the case in a few short weeks, and the heat and humidity will linger until the end of baseball season, meaning daytime runs will be torture.
I was thinking about that as I ran this morning. Within a few weeks, summer will descend. It’ll be 90 everyday and any run that’s not complete by sunrise will be best done inside.
My brain went to its normal place when thinking of running in the summer down here: I hate it!
That’s a bad approach. To be clear, dragging yourself out of bed at 4:30 to get your run in and stop profusely sweating before work isn’t fun. It’s hard. And I need two pair of sneakers, because it take a couple days for the sweat to dry out from the ones I wear for the run.
But the running is still worthwhile. And, truth be told, though it’s hard to train on hills without finding a parking garage, there’s a certain pride being able to say that you run each morning in a functional steam bath. It makes you appreciate the days like today when it’s comfortable. And if you can build your instance during a Florida summer, you can do it anywhere.
It’s no secret that it’s hot and humid in Florida from May through October. Hating the state for that is like hating water for being wet. That’s what it is. Hatred in that context is just wasted energy.
So while I’ll acknowledge the difficulty of running here in the summer, this year I’m trying to retune my approach. If I can stop hating Florida weather for being Florida weather, there’s no telling what I can stop hating.
That’s make it easier for me and by extension for others.
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