A Non Runners Guide To Running
Even though you might completely hate running, there is probably a piece of you that one day wanted to run a marathon or envied your friends who run regularly, but never thought you would ever be able to run yourself. I’m telling you now this isn’t true. Everyone is capable of running, and as humans, we were born to run.
In today’s world where we are constantly sitting and taking the easy option, it may feel unnatural, but if you give yourself a small chance and stick with it, you might actually enjoy it…It might even change your life.
Start Very Small
The first piece of advise I give anyone is start small, especially if you are not really used to doing any form of physical activity. If you decide you want to train for a marathon, find out that you’ll need to run 42.2km(26.2miles) on race day and all your motivation to start running will be lost as quickly as you got it. Maybe instead look at doing 20 minutes of running/walking a day for two weeks. Then at the end of the two weeks, you can review and see where you want to go from there. Everyone is different, and some people will find this to be too easy, while other people might even struggle to do this.
Give Yourself Time To Suck
When you first start running, you are going to actually make obvious progress, but you still need to give yourself a little time to suck. You might be one of the few gifted athletes that is able to run fast the minute they get up off the coach, but a majority of us mear mortals will need to start slow and make progress, as we work on our running from day to day.
Make It Fun
Even though I talk and write mostly about running, I actually recommend that people do any physical activity they enjoy and have fun with. But don’t completely discount running. There are heaps of ways you can make running fun:
- Run with music and play your favorite tunes
- Hire a coach who can mix up your training schedule
- Take your dog for a run
- Do a local park run or enter a fun run
Be Consistent
The only way your going to get better and improve your running and fitness, is by being consistent. This doesn’t need to be running six does a week either. I honestly believe you can improve your run with three training sessions a week. Just get organized and make sure you are not expecting massive results in a couple of weeks.
Track Your Progress
You might feel like you’re not making any progress but this isn’t really true, especially if you aren’t tracking your progress. On thing you might need to realize is that progress is not always in the shape of running faster. There could be any number of things that night be changing to show you are making progress. This could include:
- Running further
- Running stronger up hills
- Improved muscle tone
- Loosing weight
- Feeling less breathless when performing other tasks
- Sleeping better
- Feeling more confident
The list goes on, but you won’t really notice unless you track them somehow. You can use an app like Strava to track specific running progress but you might want to get yourself a running journal to track your day to day progress.
Get Social
Getting social with running is a great way to meet like minded people and this could be the best way to keep you motivated with your running goals. This might include looking for a local run group to train with, finding a Facebook group dedicated to running or connecting with people on Strava. Even enlisting a friend who has a similar goal to get running be the thing you need to keep you running regularly.
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Vince Sesto is a DevOps Engineer, Endurance Athlete, Coach and Author. One of his passion’s in life is endurance sports as both an athlete, coach and author. He is a certified running and triathlon coach with a goal to inspire people through his coaching and competition and to encourage people to live active and healthy lives.
His motto in life is, “I am trying to change the world, one run at a time”.
