Tag: motivation

Running Early

Yesterday, frustrated by my inability to fit various activities into my life and by my tendency to struggle to do anything if it involves me making a decision, I came (back) to the thought that I function much better when I remove the decision-making process entirely from the equation. The specific example was fitting running into my schedule – I have a vague plan of running three times per week, two shorter runs on weekdays (most commonly Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday) and then a longer run on (usually) Saturday morning. There I was, on Monday morning, knowing that I had to fit a run in over the next couple of days but not being able to decide when I would do this. Now, for me, having to make a decision like this is always problematic because, weirdly, if I am left to my own devices and am solely reliant on my own motivation to do things, the most likely outcome is that I will do nothing. Despite WANTING to do things I rarely FEEL like doing things. I have a huge amount of internal friction, or what I am now starting to think of as ‘personal viscosity‘, that resists action. All of which left me struggling to decide, struggling to plan and generally feeling frustrated with myself (as usual).

After a short period of wallowing in some kind of self-pity I was struck by the thought that it would really be a lot better if I didn’t leave myself having to decide about things and that it would be much better to decide now that I always do X at time Y. This is basically the idea of making a decision once rather than having to make similar decisions many times over. It’s not a new idea, I’ve been in this place and had this thought plenty of times in the past and, I am sure, will re-discover it again plenty of times in the future; because I know what I’m like and it would be unrealistic to think that suddenly I will make a plan, turn it into action and everything will be sweetness and light forever after.

After this re-revelation I decided that the best way for me to remove the decision-making process from my running deliberations would simply be to run everyday, if only for a mile, first thing in the morning unless there was some other specific event occurring that prevented this. The result was a ‘plan’ to run 1 mile on Mondays, ~3 miles on Tuesdays, 1 mile on Wednesdays, ~5 miles on Thursday and 1 mile on Fridays, always starting as close to 7am as possible (immediately after waking) and before I had done anything else, including eating. Then, on Saturdays, I would do a longer run (say 90-120 minutes) starting an hour after eating some breakfast which I would do first thing. My thinking was that if I didn’t have any decisions to make there would be one less barrier to me getting out and that I would have the satisfaction of always having achieved something at the start of the day. I would win a battle with myself before embarking on the war that stretched ahead of me each day. To help myself out I would have all of my running gear set up ready to put on in the morning so that again, another monster standing in the way of action would be pre-slain.

That was Monday, today is Tuesday.

It sort of worked. Actually, that’s unfair. It DID work, just not quite as smoothly as I would have liked (or imagined). I did get out for my run – a 3 mile route around local streets that I call ‘Mostly Mannamead’. It was a little slow and I was a little creaky (I’d not run for 4 days) but the run happened. What went less well is that it took me 15-20 minutes from the time I woke to overcome my viscosity and get moving and then I slipped into one of my cracks in time on my return to the house and took ages to get myself into the shower and onwards to breakfast, some writing and then into work. It’s clear that I really need to work on my transitions.

Tomorrow being Wednesday and just a 1 mile run day should be easier. I’ll set myself up in advance – running kit out etc – and I will TRY to reduce the time it takes for me to get out of the door. On my return I’ll probably go straight into breakfast mode before I have a shower. Oddly, I have no trouble eating immediately after I run (and anyway, 1 mile is hardly a run at all) and hopefully that will mean that I’ve cooled down and am ready to shower as soon as I have finished eating. Maybe, just maybe, I can get everything to fall into place – wake, run, breakfast, shower – and be able start writing (something else that I am trying to work into my schedule on a more regular and reliable basis) by 8am.

We’ll see…

Chipping Away… towards 1000 miles

Several months ago, back in the dim and distant days of late summer, when I was running lots and nothing like as busy with work as I have been this past 12 weeks, I signed myself up for a virtual challenge of completing 1000 miles in the year. This simply involved paying out £12.95 (I think) to a company who would send me a nice shiny medal once I sent in proof that I had completed 1000 miles of running during 2020. At the time it seemed pretty easy – I was well on track and completing the mileage from my (then) current position wasn’t that big a deal.

Then I got busy with work. Really busy.

The last 12 weeks are by far my busiest period of the academic year and on top of lots of lectures, marking and general (virtual) interactions with students I’ve had the pleasure of ongoing work sorting out the timetable for February onwards – something which is usually done in the summer. So my running suffered a bit – not to the extent that I crashed out of it altogether – but enough that about 6 weeks ago I realised that if I wanted that 1000 mile medal I had better start putting on my running shoes and getting out a bit more often. Since then, I have been working on an average daily mileage of close to 3 miles and that has meant grabbing every opportunity to pound the streets that I can. No, what I mean is that it has meant me dragging myself out of the house a lot more than my naturally lazy-arsed instinct would want. But it has worked. I now find myself with 17 days to go needing to run about 2.6 miles per day and the final target is very much within reach. I think only a bad cold will scupper things now although it should be acknowledged that a bad cold is exactly what I usually get the moment that this particular term finishes (so it’s scheduled for Friday later this week…). I’ve also upped the ante by forking out for another rather nice wooden ‘medal’ which I will award myself for running at least a kilometre every day in the 24 days running up to Christmas Day itself. No pressure (well, only self-inflicted pressure I guess).

Today, I had a plan to work through to about now and then go out for a pleasant 4-5 miles but here I am writing this and putting it off. I look out of the window and it’s completely dark (at 4:50pm). I can feel that it’s cold – not freezing cold but cold enough to make the prospect of going outside not entirely pleasant. At least it is not currently raining, although there are some pretty dark clouds out there and there have been some heavy showers. So I sit here typing instead.

No, no, NO. IT WON’T DO… Stop writing, switch off the computer, get off the chair, get changed and get out there. There are miles to be run and they won’t run themselves. You just have to keep chipping away. Always.