4 Steps to Enjoy Running Again

I’m learn­ing a lot from my two daugh­ters, and not just because they share facts every day that I didn’t know (Did you know that the Cal­en­dula flower helps cuts heal faster?). I’m also learn­ing about life and run­ning by observ­ing them at play.

My girls are quite active. They can be seen most of the day run­ning through the back­yard and house. As I watched my three-year-old daugh­ter run and leap across the front lawn the other day, I was struck by her huge smile. She was hav­ing a com­plete blast. You’ve seen the same look on your own face in pho­tos from your child­hood. Remem­ber how good it felt to just let loose and run? There’s so much love for life spread across a child’s face when they run. It’s as if the mere act of run­ning is delight­ful. What a concept!

I real­ized that the emo­tions I too often expe­ri­ence while run­ning are closer to those that my daugh­ters have when they are asked to stop and do their chores. How could some­thing so enjoy­able turn into such a drudgery?

It wasn’t that long ago run­ning was play for me. I remem­ber some very fun runs in col­lege. One of the best expe­ri­ences came while I was study­ing abroad in France. While on a week­end visit to Zer­matt, Switzer­land, I spent an after­noon run­ning down the moun­tain­side below the Mat­ter­horn. I tore down the hill, launch­ing myself into the air like a moun­tain goat and dart­ing in between the trees like a deer. I must have had a smile on my face from ear to ear. So what happened?

Well, the pres­sures of life pulled me away from run­ning, or so the excuse goes. When I did run, I ran harder and fur­ther to make up for what I hadn’t done – a sure recipe for dis­as­ter. I’d overdo it and hate how I felt. It wasn’t long before I began to lament run­ning the same way I did get­ting a wis­dom tooth pulled. It was some­thing I had to do, but sure hurt like hell.

The good news is that I was able to fig­ure out how to regain some of that inner joy from run­ning. I thought I’d share some of my learn­ings that helped put a smile back on my face while I run.

1. Inte­grate Fun: First and fore­most, focus on hav­ing fun. For many peo­ple this is accom­plished by train­ing with a friend. For oth­ers, it’s all about hav­ing a spiffy new out­fit. For me, it was the com­bi­na­tion of lis­ten­ing to new music, run­ning in nature, and fin­ish­ing each run with a deli­cious espresso. Take a moment and jot down the things you really enjoy and brain­storm how you can include some of them into your run­ning rou­tine.
   » Incor­po­rate plea­sur­able activities.
2. Walk and Run: My mom was an active woman, but about as far from being a run­ner as you could get. I was shocked to learn that she had begun train­ing for the LA Marathon, and then went on to com­plete it. She did it through a com­bi­na­tion of run­ning and walk­ing. At first, I must admit, I thought this wasn’t really run­ning a marathon. After all, if you walk, you’re not run­ning, right? Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. Start­ing out with a walk/run plan enabled me to take it slowly enough for my body to regain the strength and agility it needed to run well. I began by keep­ing my heart rate between 65 and 85% of my max­i­u­mum heart rate. This kept me from over­do­ing it, which helped me con­tinue to have fun.
   » Focus on a long-term goal, swal­low­ing your ego for a bit.
3. Make a Plan: Stud­ies have shown that peo­ple are more likely to com­plete a task when they out­line specif­i­cally what they need to do and when they are going to do it. I used the Smart­Coarch on Runner’s World’s web­site to cre­ate my own cus­tomized train­ing plan based on my cur­rent speed plus the date and dis­tance of my next race. How­ever you cre­ate your plan, make sure to inte­grate it into your daily cal­en­dar and print it out so you can check off what you accom­plish each day.
   » Plan for success.
4. Track Your Progress: When you’re out there sev­eral days a week, it can be hard to notice your improve­ments. You need to track and log your progress so you can look back and see how much you’ve improved over the weeks and months. There are a num­ber of ways you can get data on your run. I used a Garmin GPS watch and heart-rate mon­i­tor. That way I was could see that my heart rate slowly went down over the weeks while my dis­tance increased. You can use low-tech tech­niques as well. Sim­ply use a local track or run along the same route and use your watch to see how far you go in a set amount of time. The main thing is to cap­ture some data so you can see your improve­ment over time.
   » Use met­rics to mon­i­tor and moti­vate yourself.

These are four of the things that helped me enjoy run­ning once again. Give them a try and see if they work for you as well.

Keep in mind that too much pres­sure can lead to stress and kill the fun. So check back in with your­self from time to time. If you haven’t been smil­ing on a run recently,  it’s time to switch things up. You may just need to ditch every­thing you’ve been told and lis­ten to your inner child.

What do you think?

• When was the last time you found your­self smil­ing on a run?
• What have you found works to bring the joy back to running?

Be Socia­ble, Share!

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