Running Resolve

In my running life, resolutions are an everyday thing, not an annual New Year’s Day exercise. 

Each morning, I find myself needing to make a new promise to get out the door at some point that day for a jog. Usually, before my head hits the pillow that night, I am able to follow through and get it done. But not always.

For when I don’t succeed, it helps to have framed my resolution to run as a mundane, workaday enterprise. This keeps the stakes low and lessens my agonizing when things don’t work out.

Missed a workout? No problem, I tell myself if I’m beating myself up about it. Tomorrow brings a clean slate and another chance to push the rock back up the hill.

Embracing this small-scale approach to resolutions is one survival technique I use to help me stay on the right path.

Another thing I try to do is make room for the ebbs and flows of my running life, anticipating my lows as well as my highs.

Sure, once in a while, I manage to blast out a brag-worthy effort or string together a few days where I do what the training plan asks of me. But from heaps of letdowns in the past, I also know that any big exciting workout or pride-worthy achievement is going to be followed by a crash back to reality.

For the following day or three, I’ll be drained. I’ll lack motivation. I’ll call it quits early if I even manage to get out the door.

Not to worry. It’s all part of the biorhythms of my running. One big step forward, then a few half-steps back. Maybe it’s my body’s way of resetting and recharging. Maybe it’s my brain’s way of reconnecting with the purpose behind this absurd athletic enterprise that I love so much. After that, if I’ve let myself rest on my laurels for a bit without getting in a twist about it, my resolve is recharged and I’m ready to rumble again.

Someone who knows all about this subject is Megan Searfoss, owner of Ridgefield Running Company in Connecticut. Judging by the swarm of customers in her Ridgefield store getting fitted for new shoes when I stopped by the last day of the year, Megan has seen a lot of resolutions come and go.

I asked her if she had any tips for helping folks set and achieve their goals. “Make smaller bites into a bigger goal,” she says. “Instead of, ‘I want to run a marathon this year,’ which is achievable but a big goal, start with, ‘In order to run a fall marathon, I will start running three times per week.’”

Setting a bite-sized, realistic goal gives you the best chance to succeed, and also protects you from injury. “Add mileage slowly,” Megan says. “Not only is it more achievable, your tendons and ligaments will adapt, which will allow you to enjoy the process.”

Running is a never-ending challenge, for newbies and old-timers alike, and finding ways to enjoy the process is really the key to everything.

Most of the time, my resolution trick and other techniques keep me moving in the right direction. Of course there are some days when none of these things are worth a darn and I’m having exactly no fun, when I run myself right into a wall and all I want to do is lie down in a dark room under a weighted blanket and have a little cry.

But that is the stuff of a different conversation.