SEASONS IN THE SUN

Summer: what a jol - but your training gets complicated. It doesn't have to be that way.

- PROF. ROSS TUCKER

'Tis the season to be silly. Because the holidays are here to disrupt your life.

There are too many tourists. (Perhaps you're a tourist.) Or, school's out, and the usual family pressures change. Too much food, lots to drink. Too hot. Crowds, lack of routine maybe even summer illness (something we've become accustomed to).

Staying fit and healthy over the early months of summer, paradoxically, can throw up a few challenges. Good intentions always follow the change in season, and many of us hit the ground running (literally) as we attempt to capitalise on the better weather to catch up on fitness that may have slipped over winter. But while the weather is improving - warmer mornings, lighter starts and longer days mean more training options the period between early December and January, when your normal routines begin to re-establish themselves, is a tricky one.

THE HEAT IS ON

Your first challenge may be the temperature. While we don't have major extreme weather in SA (except perhaps for short periods in places like Durban, where heat and humidity team up to make running very challenging), the swing in temperatures is large enough that if you come off a period of training in cool conditions and then run in the heat, you'll know all about it.

Fortunately, the solution is rather 'designed' into the calendar; because as long as you're training consistently as these seasonal shifts happen, you'll adapt in time with the temperatures. That's because physiology responds to the heat as an additional stress, and over time, we become better at dealing with that stress and running in the heat.