There’s a VERY fine line between being dedicated to your daily run, and being completely out of your mind. If you’re a runner living in the South, you cross that line somewhere around the middle of May and don’t come back until the end of the year.
Running through a southern summer is an exercise in mental strength. The temperature says 82 degrees at 5:30 AM, but the humidity is sitting at a crisp 98 percent, meaning the air feels less like oxygen and more like warm, wet velvet. To survive this season with our sanity intact, we have to rely on a very specific set of lies. We tell them to ourselves in the mirror, we whisper them while lacing up our shoes, and we manifest them on the asphalt. They are beautiful, comforting, and entirely incorrect.
Here are the top five delusions we all embrace just to get out the door during a southern summer.
“If I get out there early enough, it won’t be that bad”
And so it begins. This is the ultimate gateway lie. You set your alarm for the crack of dawn, thinking you’re going to beat the system. You step outside at 4:30 AM, the sky is still pitch black, and… you instantly start sweating while standing completely still on your porch. The sun isn’t even awake yet, but the humidity has been throwing a party all night. You aren’t beating the heat, you’re just running inside a dark, steamy sauna. But hey, at least you don’t need sunglasses.
“That rainstorm yesterday afternoon probably cooled things down”
Oh, honey, no. If it rains at 4:00 PM in Florida, the next morning is going to be brutal. That rain didn’t cool things down: it just turned the hot asphalt into a giant steamer basket. When you head out the next morning, you aren’t just running through humidity, you are running through evaporating raindrops. The air is so thick you feel like you need a snorkel just to hit your stride. Gross.
“I’ll just run under the trees, the shade will save me”
Cool, cool. We love our beautiful oak canopies and shaded neighborhood loops, and we even convince ourselves that a little leaf coverage drops the temperature by ten degrees. The reality is this. The shade blocks the direct sunlight, which is nice, but it also traps the humidity like a greenhouse ceiling. Running under a thick canopy in July just means you are trapping yourself in a all that hot air. But we still map our routes around those trees because desperation loves company.
“I’m just going to do an easy pace, so I won’t sweat that much”
You promise yourself you’re going to keep things strictly in Zone 2. You log a pace that is three minutes slower than your usual winter tempo, thinking your high-tech, moisture-wicking gear will keep you cool and dry. Cut to mile two, and your socks are literally squishing inside your shoes. Your clothes are so heavy with moisture you can wring them out, and you look like you just jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed. In a southern summer, “not sweating that much” isn’t a thing.
“This summer training is going to make me a superhero in October”
This is the grandaddy of all running delusions, but it’s the one that actually keeps us going. We tell ourselves that dragging our feet through the swamp miles all summer is like training in a high-altitude altitude chamber. We convince ourselves that the second the first real cold front drops the humidity below 50 percent in autumn, we will grow wings and effortlessly smash every single PR on our calendar. This is the one lie that actually holds some truth. Fall and winter PRs are built in the summer.
What’s one lie you tell yourself to cope with summer running?
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