On May 4, I decided I would run every day in May.
I've had a goal this year to run, on average, every other day. In January, I was a little ahead of that goal; in February I fell behind due to a week of snowy, icy conditions in Nashville. March was basically breakeven, and I picked up a couple extra days in April to get on par for the year.
So where did the sudden desire to run every day for the whole month come from? I'm not very sure. I went for a run on Friday, April 30 to draw even on my goal for the year. Then I ran both days during the weekend, trying to get ahead of the every-other-day pace for May, and that good vibe carried into the week.
But during the run on May 4, I knew that I wanted to try to keep it up for the entire month.
After having a chance to reflect a bit on the experience, here are some things I learned:
The best motivation is intrinsic: Nobody else expected me to run every day for a month. It was something I decided for myself, and something that only I could hold myself accountable for.
Articulating a specific goal made it possible to push through hard days: You may be surprised to hear this, but some days you just REEEALLY don't feel like running. I woke up feeling a bit ill with a gnarly headache one day around the middle of the month, yet I wasn't able to accept the idea of giving up just because I didn't feel 100%.
Dedication and commitment drive motivation, not the other way around: I often hear people talk about motivation as if it has to be the starting point for achievement. I don't think I agree with that idea. Committing to the idea of running every day made it a lot easier to push myself to run through sore legs or early in the morning on days when my schedule wasn't very kind. If motivation had to be the starting point, I can tell you that the pair of pre-7 a.m. runs most definitely would not have happened.
Committing to a goal sparks creativity for achieving it: Early in the month, I had a couple of all-day training sessions for work, which highly constrained my free time for running. On both of those days, I had hourlong breaks for lunch, so I did very short runs (1 mile) during those breaks so that I could shower and be back when the session began again. That's not a choice I normally would have made, but creating this tactic early in the month gave me a way to keep up the running while also balancing a busy work schedule and my wife's very reasonable expectation of taking care of sweet kiddos.
There's an arc to creating a new habit, and the payoff is on the other side: When you're not really in the habit of running of every day, you find that running for a week leads to some pretty sore legs. Committing to running for a whole month means that you're going to have to push through running on those sore legs. The surprising thing is that after another week (in my experience), you get past that soreness and the runs become easier again. In fact, you start running up hills a little easier, picking up your pace, adding a little more distance at the end. There's really no path to that new habit you want without going through the obstacles of some discomfort in the short term.
I've had a goal this year to run, on average, every other day. In January, I was a little ahead of that goal; in February I fell behind due to a week of snowy, icy conditions in Nashville. March was basically breakeven, and I picked up a couple extra days in April to get on par for the year.
So where did the sudden desire to run every day for the whole month come from? I'm not very sure. I went for a run on Friday, April 30 to draw even on my goal for the year. Then I ran both days during the weekend, trying to get ahead of the every-other-day pace for May, and that good vibe carried into the week.
But during the run on May 4, I knew that I wanted to try to keep it up for the entire month.
After having a chance to reflect a bit on the experience, here are some things I learned:
The best motivation is intrinsic: Nobody else expected me to run every day for a month. It was something I decided for myself, and something that only I could hold myself accountable for.
Articulating a specific goal made it possible to push through hard days: You may be surprised to hear this, but some days you just REEEALLY don't feel like running. I woke up feeling a bit ill with a gnarly headache one day around the middle of the month, yet I wasn't able to accept the idea of giving up just because I didn't feel 100%.
Dedication and commitment drive motivation, not the other way around: I often hear people talk about motivation as if it has to be the starting point for achievement. I don't think I agree with that idea. Committing to the idea of running every day made it a lot easier to push myself to run through sore legs or early in the morning on days when my schedule wasn't very kind. If motivation had to be the starting point, I can tell you that the pair of pre-7 a.m. runs most definitely would not have happened.
Committing to a goal sparks creativity for achieving it: Early in the month, I had a couple of all-day training sessions for work, which highly constrained my free time for running. On both of those days, I had hourlong breaks for lunch, so I did very short runs (1 mile) during those breaks so that I could shower and be back when the session began again. That's not a choice I normally would have made, but creating this tactic early in the month gave me a way to keep up the running while also balancing a busy work schedule and my wife's very reasonable expectation of taking care of sweet kiddos.
There's an arc to creating a new habit, and the payoff is on the other side: When you're not really in the habit of running of every day, you find that running for a week leads to some pretty sore legs. Committing to running for a whole month means that you're going to have to push through running on those sore legs. The surprising thing is that after another week (in my experience), you get past that soreness and the runs become easier again. In fact, you start running up hills a little easier, picking up your pace, adding a little more distance at the end. There's really no path to that new habit you want without going through the obstacles of some discomfort in the short term.
Jason Parker