Week 3: Record your progress
Don’t worry; it’s not too late to start! You can jump on the schedule anytime.
Keep a log! The schedule is what you follow, the running log is to record how the run went and to keep track of your progress. Everyday make an entry into your log...even if it is just a big fat ZERO! A few zeros in a row might motivate you out the door, keep writing zeros daily...or run!
Perhaps the most motivational tool in the, "get your butt out the door arsenal", will be your log. In your log keep track of your streaks and personal records or "P.R.’s" in runner’s lingo. Examples of P.R.’s would be: the fastest time you ran around the 2 mile loop from your house, the most days you ran in a row, the most miles you ran in a week, month or year or the longest run you ever ran. What is a streak? Imagine that one day as you read over your log you realize that it has been 10 weeks since you ran less than 3 days in a week, or less than 8 miles in a week. Imagine that it is a rainy Sunday and you have only run 2 times this week for a total of 6 miles. You are considering blowing the day off but the log will haunt you, knowing you only need 2 miles to keep your streaks alive! You will run the two miles and record the new P.R. and an 11-week streak!
In your log you can keep information on pace, weather, how you felt, the course and any other significant occurrences such as new aches or pain, something interesting you saw, a thought you had … You will not know how valuable the log is to your success until you keep track for a while … So start today!
Getting Out the Door: There will be plenty of days that your body just doesn't feel like it has the energy to get out the door, it just wants to hit the couch and click on the tube after a long day of work, days when even the numbers in the log don’t stir your soul. This is the time to lie to your body. Promise it that you just want to go out for 5 minutes and that if it still wants to go home and lay on the couch after that you will let it. Actually you aren’t lying because once you have gone through the trouble of getting on the gear and are heading up the street 5 minutes will pass and your energy level will rise. After the run/walk you will be saying to yourself, "I feel great, what a great run/walk, I’m sure glad I got out the door". It’s strange how many times I have gone through this scenario. I just can’t seem to remember how great I feel once I run/walk until I am actually running. Just get out the door and the run is licked.