Hi Muneer!

Until a few years ago, I basically never ran unless I was playing trashcan ball or some other sport. Then all of a sudden, something clicked and I found a new hobby that also happens to make me healthier.

I'm especially happy that I got into running since it's so convenient. I can grab my keys, step outside, and go for a run without any equipment. I don't need a gym and I don't have to find other people to get a game going. And of course, it's still beautiful outside where I live (even if it's super hot).

I track all of my runs on my Apple Watch, and the main things I'm looking for are consistency and progress. I don't need to be faster on every single run, but I always want the trend to be that my pace gets faster over time.

Sometimes, my pace gets faster because I'm training really hard, or because I change things up to focus on a specific distance. But sometimes weird things happen and I see big drops in my times that are unexpected.

A few Springs ago, I ran a 10k training run (a little more than 6 miles) in just under 50 minutes. That's slightly faster than a pace of 8:00 minutes per mile.

Then I stopped running more than 5 miles at a time and started training for shorter distances (like a mile) and just trying to get through the miserable Florida summer.

Then the first signs of Fall arrived, meaning race season was coming up and I needed to start training for longer distances if I wanted to run a half marathon I had scheduled for the end of the year.

So, after training shorter distances for several months, I decided to try a 10k training run to see how it felt. I ran the same route as I had earlier in the year, but this time was significantly faster: It only took me about 48:30, which is a pace of 7:44 per mile.

Ninety seconds is a pretty big improvement considering I hadn't run that far in six months. That was even a big improvement over my previous personal best, and it felt great to run such a good time.

Can you guess what I did differently to run so much faster this time?

Think about it for a second, then scroll down to see the answer.

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Spoiler below!

Are you ready?

The answer is: Nothing.

I'm pretty sure the difference was the temperature.

When I ran that 10k in the Spring, it was 79 degrees outside. When I ran that 10k run later in the year, it was only 72 degrees.

There are lots of studies showing that race times improve as temperatures drop (to an extent, of course).

So it felt good to run a personal best, but most of the improvement was just the lower temperature. My job was to train hard enough that I could finally take advantage of the improved running conditions once the weather cooled off.

Sometimes, the conditions just aren't right to get the result you want. But as long as you keep preparing and putting in the work, you can make sure you're ready to capitalize once the conditions are right.

Here are some other examples that come to mind:

• Starting a business
• Getting a raise
• Running for office (a different kind of running, har har 🙄)
• Inventing something
• Planting plants

For all of those and lots of other things, timing is often the crucial ingredient that dictates success or failure.

Learning a skill, practicing, looking for ways to improve, waiting for the right moment to capitalize is often the key to success. And a big reason to keep working is that it's not just doing the thing, but being prepared to do the thing when the conditions are right that makes all the difference.

I ran all summer in hot, humid weather, just waiting for it to cool off. I called those runs "maintenance runs", and my goal was usually to run at an 8:00-per-mile pace regardless of the distance.

Maintenance runs were not fun and it often took a few hours to fully recover from them. But I knew they were helping me build strength and endurance that I could use later on when the conditions were right.

Sure enough, the weather cooled off and I smashed another personal best. That gave me confidence going into race season, where was able to capitalize on favorable running conditions after all those months of training in the Florida heat.

Those maintenance runs in the hot Florida summer were hard, but they helped me be ready to set new personal records when conditions were more favorable in the fall.

It's easy to just focus on just getting through tough times and that's probably the right place to focus. But it's also worth finding one or two things you can work on right now that might be useful when things start to normalize later on.

I'm focusing on making more people aware of my work and communicating how it can help them. I think that will pay off later on when people are getting back to work after this tough season. I hope you can find something new to focus on too.

All the best

Josh