Running isn’t easy. I work with quite a few people who are just beginning of their running journey. The thing I most often hear myself telling them, is “stick with it long enough for it to feel good and if you do your golden.”
It can take months before a new runner achieves the illusive runner’s high. In the beginning every run feels like work. In a fast food world full of popular crash diets and get rich fast gimmicks, we are often left without the proper amount of patience we need to get to where we want to go.
For most people, it takes time for running to actually feel good which means having patience and perseverance to keep running even though it’s challenging. If you are consistent with your running and gradually build up your endurance over the course of several months eventually you’ll be out on the road huffing and puffing along when suddenly it will click. You’ll return home from your run with a big silly grin on your face and you’ll be glad you stuck it out.
In a nutshell, my biggest piece of advice is stick it out. Keep running even when it’s hard. Keep running even if you don’t feel like you’re improving. Keep running until it clicks.
And remember “forward is a pace.”
Have a question? Feel free to reach out on Facebook, Twitter, below in the comment section, or feel free to shoot me an email.
I love this – “Forward is a pace” – very nice!
Totally needed to read this tonight! My last few runs have felt so hard and I’ve felt like I’m sliding backwards. Good to remember how far I’ve come and that just because I run a bit slower one time, I’m still moving forward!
Great post! I’m not a new runner, but I’m slow and running is not easy for me. I’m just running till it clicks, like you said! Thanks!
“Sticking with it” is seriously the best advice to give any new runner. I tried running twice before in college, I would train for a month or 2 before a 5K and then have no motivation or desire to stay with it and I hated training. This time around I had a plan from the day I signed up for a training group and for after the group was over. I also gave my self a long timeline to give it a go (enough to make it a habit) and didn’t allow my self to give up until that time. But when that time came I didn’t need or want to give up because I’m hooked!