If one of your hobbies is running, you already know that going for a run gets a bit more complicated in the hottest months: it is necessary to change habits and schedules in order to be able to run without risks , it being more advisable to take advantage of the first hours of the morning to accumulate kilometers.

If you are one of those who do not stop running even in the hottest months of the year, we give you the keys to make the most of your workouts in the mornings. What do I have to eat? How should I hydrate? What are the benefits of leaving early in the day? This is all you have to know when it comes to running first thing in the morning.

Breakfast before or after training?

If you get up very early to go running with the cool of the morning, you will surely consider if you have to have breakfast before or after training . Keep in mind that breakfast should be at least half an hour before going out to run to respect the time of digestion and run without stomach discomfort. This would mean getting up earlier for breakfast, letting time pass, and going out to train.

There are people who, as in the day of a race, get up, have breakfast and go back to bed to take a last nap while doing the digestion. The risk, of course, is that the last nod will lengthen and finally we will not go out to train.

Is it a good idea to go out and train on an empty stomach? If we are used to it and we are not going to do a very intense training, it does not have to have any problem: in our body we have, as a general rule, plenty of reserves to be able to carry out a medium continuous training without having to have breakfast. A good idea may be to dine well the night before to ensure fuel in the morning (no need to put a pasta party every night, but have a reserve of carbohydrates to ensure a good workout).

If you are not trained and used to training fasting, it is best not to start suddenly : you can try and reduce your intake little by little or limit it to something rather light, that does not require a lot of digestion time, to make breakfast strong after training.

And how do I have to hydrate to go running in the morning?

It is important that we stay hydrated, even more so in summer, when high temperatures and humidity in the environment make us sweat more and lose mineral fluids and salts. Ideally, we should start hydrating properly from the day before, without limiting ourselves to the previous minutes before running.

The base of our hydration should be water, making use of isotonic drinks only in case of need (in low-intensity workouts such as the continuous race of less than an hour in duration it is not usually necessary to consume them). During the moments before leaving to train, as in the previous one to a race, we can continue hydrating ourselves with water in small sips to avoid discomforts like flatus.

Start the morning with energy with a yoga sequence

A good idea to wake up and warm up before going out to run is to take about ten minutes before leaving home, to do a small sequence of Yoga that puts the batteries and that you load energy to perform your career training and get it out the greatest possible match. It can also serve to make time after taking the light breakfast that we talked about before and before going for a run.

Start mobilizing your joints to not start cold and perform four or five sequencesof yoga sun salutation : a series of asanas or postures that help you wake up and mobilize your entire spine, combining the extensions and spinal column in a sequence ordered.

Be clear about your training and leave everything prepared the night before

There is nothing that motivates less to go out to train than to leave without knowing what you are going to do or having to go looking at seven in the morning where you have left the heart rate monitor or where are the shoes. Establish a training plan based on your goal and be clear every morning what you are going to train that day: series, continuous race, the kilometers, the rhythms …

Also leave ready the clothes that you are going to use the previous night so as not to walk at seven in the morning (or before) looking for all the house socks that you can not find. If you have to enter the training in your heart rate monitor, leave it done the day before, and leave also the heart rate monitor, the headphones and what you may need. Basically leave everything prepared as you would the day before a race, but do it every day while you go out to train early in the morning.

The importance of rest and hours of sleep

If normally the rest of the year you start running in the afternoon, starting to go out to train early in the morning can be a big challenge. Surely you plan to get up at least an hour or an hour and a half before to give you time to go running, shower, breakfast and get to work on time.

Now, if you have planned to get up an hour and a half before, also calculates that you should go to bed earlier to be able to rest the necessary time (between seven and eight hours is usually the normal) and that your body does not suffer (sleep little and badly can aggravate the risk of injury, among other things). It is a matter of planning: put an alarm on your mobile that tells you when you go to bed and do not postpone it: a good rest is not negotiable.

One of the most common mistakes that make your whole strategy to train in summer is going to ruin, is pretending to get up a lot earlier than usual every day and go to sleep at the same time you left before: you’ll be tired, You will not have rested enough and both your performance and your health may suffer.

The advantages of training first thing in the morning

What benefits are you going to get in exchange for getting up a little earlier to train? Know them to convince you that it is the best time of day to go running in summer:

• Activate your body from the first hour of the day: in summer, with the heat, it is normal that we find ourselves more tired and not wanting to move during the day. Training early in the morning will make us charge of energy and that we put our agency in motion to be more active and less tired throughout the day.
• It prepares you for that race that you have in your agenda: most of the races, unless they are night races, take place first thing in the morning. Training every day in the morning prepares your body to give an optimal performance on the day of the race at the same time, or at a very similar time. In addition, you will know in advance how you will find the day of the test, what you have to eat or how your body will respond to similar weather conditions.
• You leave the homework done and you have more free time: going out early in the morning will make you, if you take it as an important appointment with yourself and do not skip the workouts, have more free time and avoid the temptation to stay in the sofa in the afternoon.

Even so, the best time to train will be the one where you can do it: if training in the morning is not your thing or you can not organize to do it, training in the afternoon (be careful in summer : choose the hours closest to sunset to escape of the sun and the heat). The important thing is to create the habit of training and keep it in our day to day.