Base Miles Now, Marathon Later: Training Through the Heat for Your November Race
Every summer I have some version of the same conversation with new athletes. They want to skip their easy runs during the hottest weeks of July and August and "make it up" once fall weather arrives. I understand the instinct. Nobody enjoys an easy run at 6pm when it's 89 degrees with Indiana humidity sitting on top of it. But if your goal is a marathon in November, these are exactly the miles that build the fitness you'll cash in on race day.
Here's the thing about marathon training that a lot of runners don't realize until they've been coached through it: your aerobic base, the foundation that lets you hold pace deep into mile 20, is built almost entirely in easy, unglamorous miles. Not workouts. Not long runs alone. The easy days in between. And right now, in the middle of summer, those are the miles on the table.
So the question isn't whether to run through the heat. It's how to do it without wrecking your training block. A few things I have every athlete do during this stretch:
Move your effort to time and feel, not pace. In 90-degree heat, your heart rate can run 10 to 20 beats higher than it would on a cool October morning at the exact same pace. If you chase your normal pace in July heat, you're not training harder, you're just training your body to associate marathon effort with overheating. Run by effort and let the pace be whatever it is.
Front-load your hardest efforts to the coolest part of the day. Early morning, or late evening once the sun is down. If your only window is midday, that's a day for an easy run, not a workout.
Hydrate and fuel like it's a long run, even on medium days. Sweat rate goes up significantly in heat and humidity, and a lot of "why do I feel terrible on my runs lately" questions I get in July come down to under-fueling and under-hydrating, not fitness.
Don't compare July splits to October splits. This trips up more runners than almost anything else. The fitness is still building even when the watch says otherwise. I'd rather see an athlete nail their effort in the heat than chase a pace number that means something different in different weather.
The runners who handle this stretch well are the same ones who show up to their fall marathon with a base deep enough to hold marathon pace late into the race. That's not a coincidence. It's the actual mechanism behind good fall marathon performances, whether the goal is a Boston Qualifier or a first finish line.
If you're building toward a fall race, whether that's the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon or another race on your calendar, and you want a training plan that actually accounts for the heat instead of ignoring it, I'd love to talk. I offer a free 15-minute coaching consultation to talk through your race, your current training, and what the next few months should look like.
The work you do this month is the marathon you'll run in November. Let's make it count.
