Learn To Love Running: Motivation
September 10th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Earlier this year I taught a running clinic at my workplace. I titled the clinic ‘Learn To Love Running’. I am passionate about running. I decided to post some of the materials I put together for the clinic here on my blog. This was from one of the sessions.
Probably the one area that most beginning runners, and even experienced runners struggle with, is motivation. There are times that pulling yourself out of bed early in the morning to go running is hard. The lure of that nice warm bed and just a few more minutes of sleep is often too much to overcome. Even though I love running, there are times that I fight the motivation monster myself. However, in nearly twenty years of running, I’ve found a few tricks that will help you to get motivated to get out there and run.
One powerful motivator can be goal setting. There are a number of goals that you can use. It can be to work up to running a certain distance within a certain time, it can be running a race or losing a certain amount of weight. The idea is to set a definite, concrete goal. For many runners, it may be to run a specific race such as a marathon. If you are reasonably healthy, you can probably work up to running a marathon in a year or so. For instance you might pick a marathon about one year out and start training towards meeting that goal. Mark that race on your calendar and put periodic reminders on your calendar about how many days left till the race. The pressure of a deadline can be a great motivator. We’ll cover marathons and racing more in depth in another chapter.
Another one may be to meet a certain weight goal, for instance you might want to drop 10 pounds. For many beginning runners, just working up to being able to run a certain distance like two or three miles non-stop can be a great goal. It may be helpful to set smaller, mini-goals at first such as running a mile non-stop before working towards a larger goal such as a marathon.
Another powerful motivator is to get a running buddy. This will be someone who you will regularly run with. It’s a whole lot harder to skip your next run if that also means standing up your buddy. Some folks are wired to be social and running with a buddy or a running club makes the miles a lot less daunting than running alone.
I have found that one of my most powerful motivators is my running log. I regularly record the date, time and distances of my runs. When you look back at the end of the week, month or year and see all that you have accomplished, it helps to reinforce why you are out there pounding the pavement. I also record what shoes I was wearing so I can track the mileage on my shoes, and some notes about the run such as how I felt, if anything usual happened, etc. Some people use on-line running logs that post to their Facebook profile or other social media. It can be positive reinforcement to get feedback from your friends on your running progress.
Here are a few other tricks to help you stay motivated: Set your running clothes out the night before. This accomplishes two purposes. One, you don’t have to bump around your room in the dark if you are going to head out for an early morning run. (Your spouse will also thank you for that one.) Two, it’s harder to ignore that pile of running clothes at the end of the bed.
Schedule your runs on a calendar and ensure that you note your rest days. It’s easier to get up early to run one morning if you know that you don’t have to get up the next morning.
Treat yourself to something if you make a certain goal. For example, if you make every scheduled run for a month, you’ll treat yourself to a nice meal at your favorite restaurant. Speaking of that, as you improve as a runner and starting building up to a respectable mileage, you can occasionally indulge yourself with a decadent desert without risking your waistline. It’s nice knowing that I can get away with it occasionally because I run.
I have found that the hardest part of a run is the first mile or so. Focus on the feeling of accomplishment that comes at the end of a run rather than how hard it feels to get moving and into the groove of your run.
Another trick can be to subscribe to a running or fitness magazine such as Runner’s World. There is a lot of great information contained in the pages of a Runner’s World magazine and often just reading about running can be enough to make you want to get out there.
In short, there are quite a number of things you can do to help with motivation. The most important one though is to make up your mind to do it, no excuses, no waffling, just get out there and run.
