We hope everybody’s stocked up on sports drinks and icepacks, because summer’s oven has been set to a high broil. Much of Europe has already been engulfed by scorching weather that’s forced major races to shorten or cancel events altogether: “Heatwave Forces IRONMAN to Cancel Nice and Cut Frankfurt to a Half-Marathon.” That’s just a preview of what’s headed our way this week in the States, as you can see in this forecast predicting the hottest temperatures in over a decade. What can you do about it? Priority number one is your safety—so stay out of direct sunlight and schedule your runs for very early or late in the day. It may be uncomfortable, but provided you take the right precautions, hot weather running can actually boost your VO2 max. As we covered in “What we can learn from Flagstaff’s summer training camp,” training in hot weather can potentially raise blood volume, offering similar benefits to high-altitude training. But as we noted in “Sweating the Details: Indoor Cycling and Heat Acclimation,” you have to ease in and recalibrate your expectations. It takes weeks for your body to acclimatize, and even elites typically lose several seconds per mile on a hot day. For middle-of-the-pack racers spending more time on the asphalt, that thermal toll compounds heavily. If you’ve got any remaining questions about how to adapt to the heat, this free Ebook from our friend Coach Greg McMillan has the answers. Being based in Arizona, Greg knows a thing or two about dealing with heat on a run, so click here to download your free copy.

#BakeItTillYouMakeIt