EXTREMELY HOT AND INCREDIBLY SWEATY

CRISP, COOL WEATHER should be one of the perks of an autumn marathon, but in Chicago last October 10, the conditions felt more like a curse: humidity hovering at a muggy 80 per cent and a high temp nearing 27° Celsius. It was the warmest start to the Chicago Marathon since 2007, a year so brutal that hundreds of runners suffered heat issues, including heatstroke, causing race officials to shut down the event.

Thankfully, the 2021 race went off as planned, but for many of the 35,000-odd runners – including me – the struggles were still real. At what felt like every mile, I saw people hunched over aid stations and kneeling at medical tents, dealing with cramps, dehydration and other heat-related maladies. Even after months of training in one of the hottest summers on record, these athletes were no match for the sweltering temperatures.

Globally, some scientists are already predicting that 2022 will be equally scorching and that by 2050, if recent trends in climate change continue, the estimated increase of up to 2.8° C could feel as if many