Getting Started

My book is called, "How to Get Running and Stay Running." It will be available from waly press some day. I just have to figure out when I've reached the point where I can say, I stayed running. I don't think I'm there yet. We'll see.

Not to spoil the suspense, but one of the biggest traps for me with running is setting goals. It's not that goals don't motivate me . . . they totally do. But it's when I fail to reach a goal that's the dangerous thing. I see it as a failure and my instinct is to say, "Well then just screw it. If I can't do what I set out to do, then I just give up." I know I'm not alone in this feeling. And it's perfectly natural, especially if you try hard at something and still don't make it. It makes you feel helpless and hopeless.

As a way to overcome this tendency, when I started running again a couple of years ago, I set incredibly realistic goals and I gave myself permission to quit. At first, it was in a year. "If I don't get to where I can run 10 miles--I really don't even remember what it was--in a year, then I give myself permission to quit." But I didn't. Within a year I was running ten miles and I had no intention or inclination to quit.

It's also frustrating not to get super skinny. All I want to do is look like a 20-year-old Abercrombie model. Is that too much to ask! So when I somehow don't wind up looking like that, I have to make a deal with myself. "If I'm not looking like a six-pack stick boy in a year, then I give myself permission to quit running."

By then I'll probably be at least a little skinnier, which will encourage me to give it at least another year.