Podcasts Health & Fitness Fitness The E=MC2 of running Does running in the rain improve performance?

Does running in the rain improve performance?

Published: Nov. 21, 2021, 5 p.m.

Do you like running in the rain? I don't but I know that quite a lot of people absolutely love it. It made me wonder whether the weather, particularly rain, made any difference to your running performance. To find out, I took a look in the scientific literature.

I came across two papers, by the same groups, looking at performances in the Berlin Marathon between 1974 and 2019. They looked at the weather conditions for the races and assessed whether the weather had made any impact on the times. You can find the papers here (from May 2021) and here (from July 2021).

Perhaps we will have to do our own research to find out the ideal conditions for our own performances. As for me, I will, no doubt, continue to be a bit of a fair weather runner, avoiding the rain wherever possible.