1-5
In the decade of my fifties, I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the top of Mt. Fuji and completed five marathons, plus many races in between. Those accomplishments were especially amazing to me because, prior to age 52, I did very few physical activities—no consistent exercise or training, almost no sports involvement.
I learned some things from those endurance activities that I continue to apply to running and other parts of life. You will see that I’m very goal oriented and accomplishment is a strong motivator for me. Improving your health may be your only goal and enough of a motivator to keep you disciplined in following your exercise plan. Not me. My overwhelming and ultimate goal is good health. But that’s too shaky for me, too easily left till tomorrow. I need a challenge that has a deadline and that I cannot meet on that date unless I consistently prepare for it.
As I trained for and reached many goals in the past, I learned some things that help me not just to exist, but to live life.- Preparedness doesn’t just happen; it’s planned and the plan is implemented. You can see this in life. Maybe being prepared to stop at a stop sign seems to be intuitive, but not really. We were either trained specifically through driver’s education or learned by watching other drivers for years prior to attempting to drive. Maybe eating when hungry is intuitive, but eating what’s best for you, in the right amounts requires some preparation and learning—by example or study.
- Continuous small effort is more effective than occasional big effort.
- Only my forward progress will lessen the distance between me and my goal.
- Break down large goals into small one to success.
- I am ultimately and fully responsible for preparing for success. No one else can exercise for me. No one else is likely to physically prevent me from exercising. I can use others as an excuse not to exercise or can let my involvement with them interfere with my training schedule. That’s not always bad. Exercising and socializing are not mutually exclusive. But at the end of the day, it’s only me who either did or did not advance toward my goal. For instance, hydration is an extremely important element of good health and becomes even more critical with increased physical activity. But if I don’t drink water throughout the day, I won’t meet my goal of staying well hydrated. No one else determines how much water I drink or when. That’s my responsibility.
Maybe running is natural for a child, but sometime during life most of us stop running and lose our natural inclination to run. Even most children could not run 5, 10, or 40 kilometers. So knowing my goal and where I am today, I create and use a plan.
I always loved to hike. Infrequent hikes are better than no exercise, but not greatly beneficial to good health. Certainly not training for backpacking 8 miles down the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon National Park where the only food and water is what you (or your hiking friends) carry on your back. Just as I couldn’t hike three or four times a year and then go to the floor of the Grand Canyon and back to the rim, I can’t walk or run just three or four times in a month and then run a good race. Without training properly, I certainly I couldn’t complete a marathon without injury. Running for 30 minutes three or four times a week, week after week, is far better for me than running 60 minutes once a month.
Forward progress means the effort necessary to reach the ultimate goal.
Rests are sometimes good, sometimes essential. But keep the goal of finishing in mind. Know that every step toward the finish line is one less step to go, one step closer to success. When climbing up a mountain, there are downward sections of the trail. When running a race, portions of the route may head north when the finish line is actually south. But it’s still progression toward the goal. In training, sometimes the right effort is to do nothing at all. Rest is important. Recovery time is essential. But if R&R (rest and relaxation, that is) are used as an excuse for not exercising, that rest is not forward progress.
Being goal oriented, it is a boost to me every time I get that “I did it” feeling. If my day’s effort is to run for 40 consecutive minutes, I do well to think of it as four 10-minute runs. And every 10 minutes I have a mini-celebration of accomplishment. When it’s hard for me to get started or keep going, I use chunks of the times or distances to enable me to make progress. If I planned a 40-minute run and I’m not looking forward to it or don’t feel I can do it, I tell myself to just do the 1st 10-minutes and at the end of that segment, I decide whether to run the next chunk. Usually I complete the entire workout.
