I am writing this with all the windows open and a fan pointed directly at my face, so if this reads a little scattered, that is why.
Britain does not do heat well. We complain about the rain for eleven months of the year and then the sun properly shows up and everyone just melts on the pavement like we have never seen it before. Me included.
The Run I Should Not Have Done
I will start with the mistake, because it is the funniest bit. Last week I went out for my usual afternoon loop without really thinking about it. Same time I always go, same route, same everything. Except it was properly hot by then, and about ten minutes in I realised I had made a genuine error.
I was red in the face, my legs felt like they belonged to someone else, and Toby, bless him, kept stopping in every scrap of shade he could find and looking at me like I had personally let him down. He was right to look at me like that.
We finished the loop because I am stubborn, but it was not a good run. It was barely a run at all really, more of a slow, sweaty shuffle with a lot of stopping for water.
What Actually Works
So I changed a few things. Early mornings, before the day properly heats up, is the obvious one, and it turns out obvious things are usually obvious for a reason. Out the door not long after I wake up, before breakfast, before the kids are even properly awake, and it is a completely different experience.
Slower pace helps too. I had to let go of caring what my usual pace looks like and just accept that a heatwave run is not the day to push it. Water before I go, water when I get back, and sticking to the shadier bits of the route rather than the open stretch with zero tree cover that feels like running across a frying pan by midday.
None of it is clever. It is just paying attention instead of pretending the heat is not there.
The Bit That Felt Like Permission
Here is the honest part though. Some days this week I did not run at all. I looked outside, felt the heat already sitting on everything at nine in the morning, and just did not go.
I used to feel guilty about that, like skipping was always the weak option whatever the reason. But a proper heatwave is not the same as feeling a bit lazy on a grey Tuesday, and I think I have finally learned to tell the difference between the two.
Same Lesson, Different Weather
Most of the time, weather is not really the obstacle, it is just the easiest one to blame. That was the whole point of the bit where I finally stopped letting the rain be my excuse, and it still holds up on an ordinary damp morning.
Except sometimes the weather genuinely is the obstacle, and a proper heatwave is one of those times. Knowing the difference feels like its own small kind of progress, right up there with actually managing to make running a routine in the first place.
So that is my heatwave update. Early starts, slower legs, a lot of water, and permission to just not, some days. Toby agrees with all of it, mostly because the early starts mean he gets his walk before it gets too hot for him either.
Pat x