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Tricks to motivate you out the door for a run! |
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Why is it so hard to get out the door for a run? It is because day to day life is an "almost" inescapable trap. The effort needed to step out beyond work, laundry, bills, cooking, cleaning, newspapers, television, shopping and the sludge of daily existence is huge. Throw in bad weather, colds and Flu, pain and injury and it gets even trickier.
I have been running an average of 5 days a week for about 25 years. I am often asked, "How do you find the time or motivation to do it?" It’s not magic but let me pass along a few tricks I use.
#1. Keep a log. This can be the most important weapon in athletic arsenal. Simple numbers in a log can be tremendous motivation. The log is essential for success. Consider this scenario, with and without a log. You had promised yourself you would get in a run sometime today but family situations kept getting in your way. It is a dark, rainy Sunday night. You can finally go get for the run but you’re tired and the depressing weather has you thinking about the couch. |
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Once a Runner… |
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I, like many of you, am a product of the running boom. I refer to the running boom that took place between 1976 and 1985 when road running took off as a sport. The 40-50 year old age group is currently the largest age group of runners in every road race, 10 years ago it was the 30-40 age group, we just keep moving up. We are the running boomers. A new running boom has been taking place fueled by women new to the sport. I believe the new boomers will follow the pattern of the last boom.
Lots of trendy aerobic activities have come along since the beginning of the running boom and I believe us runners help fuel the numbers in each craze. Many of us took aerobics classes, bought mountain bikes, entered a spinning class, bought a kayak, dabbled in martial arts and climbed a rock wall. |
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Running Adventure! |
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Last winter in the Dominican Republic I had an Indiana Jones type run. We woke on departure day to a tropical rain storm. It had been raining hard all night in fact. The group was supposed to meet at 7:00 for a last run then hit the airport. Earlier in the week we ran a very hilly donkey track of a road up into the foothills of the mountains. The track took us through 3 or so villages, people living on a thread of existence. No power, open sewers, no schools or much of anything. A few goats and scrawny chickens, lots of crying babies and impassable rutted roads. A 10 mile loop course with no turning back. Did I say HILLY?
Well, the group that planned to run with me on the loop decided to sleep in ... or were wimps about a bit of mud. My Chinese buddy Youngmen did finally show up and we decided to go ahead without the safety of a larger group, my usual insurance on such a run. |
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Treadmill Running Will Make You Faster! |
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Treadmill running will make you a faster, more efficient, injury free and mentally tough runner. Does this sound like an ad for a treadmill company or what? The statement happens to be true (regardless of any shameless plug you might see at the end of this article!) but the results don’t come about from any magic, only hard work.
Let’s start with the "mentally tough" claim. Let’s say you jump on the treadmill for a workout. After what you guess is about hour of running you look down at the time readout on the treadmill and you see that you have actually been on the thing for all of 5 minutes. If you hold out for an actual hour, you will be one mentally tough runner when you get back outside running in the natural environment!
The treadmill makes you more efficient? An interesting phenomenon takes place when you run on a treadmill. Let’s say you set the speed of the treadmill at a 9 minute per mile pace. As you run to keep up with a moving belt at a specific speed, you will have a natural tendency to adjust your running form to make it the least effort possible. |
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Run Snow! |
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There is no typical Michigan winter. Last year we had a very unusual couple of months of heavy snow across the state with no meltdowns. For running, it sucked.
On the flip side, those of us runners who have taken up snow shoeing, never missed a beat! Snow shoeing is the snow belts fastest growing sport, a sport for runners! We’re not talking huge numbers but a good guess would be a that 2-3 thousand Michigan runners strapped on snowshoes before heading out for their winter workouts, and the number is growing fast. It’s hard to pin this number down but from discussions with representatives of Redfeather and Crescent Moon snowshoes, 2-3 thousand is a good guess. This number is based on sales of performance snowshoes, the smaller frames designed for strapping on your running shoes.
The western states and eastern areas like Vermont and upstate New York are the snowshoe hot beds. 4 years ago, Traverse City Running Fit managers Jeff and Daniel pulled a Midwest coo, convincing the US Snowshoe Association to hold the USSA National Championships in Traverse City, Michigan! |
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