It’s officially June! You know what that means?! New month, new challenge! This month’s 30 day challenge is to run a different 1 mile route every single day. The goal is to run at least one mile each day. It doesn’t seem THAT hard, but let me tell you, I have to challenge and pep talk myself into staying consistent EVERY SINGLE DAY. Consistency is the key to any type of success no matter what you are trying to achieve. If it were easy, everyone would achieve any goal they ever set out to conquer.
5 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Run
As I mentioned, today is just day 1 of this June running challenge. I came home from work on this beautiful 70º day feeling motivated and ready to run. I changed into my running clothes, sat down on the mat to stretch and completely lost all motivation to run! Anyone else ever feel this way?! These are my tips to get your butt moving and zero-in on that motivation:
- Get off the Mat – I know this one sounds easy, but it’s actually really hard. It’s easy to make every excuse about why you can’t get up and go for this run. It’s getting too late, you have to make dinner, your leg/knee/ankle hurts, it’s about to get dark, it’s too hot or too cold. Really the list goes on and on. The second you stand up and remember why you put your running clothes on, I promise that you are a step closer to that run.
- Put your Running Shoes on – Again, this one sounds simple, but believe me, when I don’t want to run, there is a very slim chance my shoes even touch my feet. Once those babies are on, there is no going back. You are truly ready to run!
- Grab your Headphones – Some people can run without anything in their ears. Honestly, major props to them. I am just not that kind of runner and you don’t have to be either! I highly recommend finding an artist that you love or genre of music to keep you going. It took me many runs to find the biggest motivator for me (I LOVE listening to KYGO), but once I did, it made it so much easier! I have also more recently tried out a Peloton guided run which actually was better than I thought it would be. Many people also enjoy listening to podcasts while they run. Once you find your “golden sound”, I promise it will carry you for the entire run!
- Get Outside ASAP – Again, this one sounds SO SIMPLE, but I am telling you, once you get your body outdoors, there is no going back. At that point you aren’t going to quit before you start, and once you start running you will go until you finish. There isn’t any giving up in running. There is just moving your body for the amount of time/distance that you promised yourself or there is wrapping up early when you feel you’ve moved your body enough for the day.
- You never regret a workout– To be honest, this saying RINGS in my head every time I am temped to skip a workout. And it’s the absolute truth. If you recall from #1, it’s so easy to make every single excuse in the book. But, once you start moving your body, your mind and body start to reap the benefits.
As for my run – I haven’t run in over a month so today, I stuck to just one mile. If you’re a beginner, you definitely don’t want to overdo it at the start because you’ll never try it again. Building momentum when running is key. I would also like to point out that my watch would not connect to my GPS so I had to give in and run with my phone tracker. Be bigger than your excuses my friends and get running! One mile down,(at least) 29 more to go.
xoxo
Krysta
