My New Year's Running Resolution

 Can you believe 2014 is only 28 days away?! Since we're talking about the new year, I thought I'd share this calendar I made for all of my big 2014 races. I can't wait to run through 2014!

But I want to talk about my running resolution for 2014. Ah, New Year's Resolutions. Isn't it strange how even though we all know how futile NYR's are and that we never follow through with them, we can't resist making them year after year anyway? I mean really, how many people do you know that are still actively following through on the resolutions they made on January 1st of this year? (I have actually followed through on a few of mine in the past few years, but that's because they were hyper specific and structured and not just "be nicer" or "work out more". But I digress.)


I think it's a good idea to make a New Year's Resolution for myself that relates specifically to running. I think it's great thing to make a resolution for, since I have so many concrete running goals and objectives this year.

For some, a running resolution might be achievement-based like "medal in a 10K race" or "run a marathon in under 4:30". I think these are good resolutions, but I'm not at the point in my running where I have enough experience to know what a reasonable achievement-based goal is for me. In other words, I'd like to actually run a half-marathon first before I decide what my goal race time is.

More importantly, at this point I think it will be more productive for me to adapt a resolution that helps me develop a pattern of behavior or habit, not just one specific race goal.

So, my New Year's Running Resolution for 2014 is to switch my running from the evening to the morning.

I developed this running resolution after a lot of thinking recently about the struggles I'm having with training and how I can solve them. In an earlier post, I talked about how social obligations in the evening are really hurting my ability to get runs in during the week. I did mention the possibility of switching runs to the morning, but dismissed it because it would make my days too long and it's too hard for me to get up early. I am now reconsidering that stance.

It will make my day longer when I have some event or meeting in the evening. But morning is my only undisturbed time of day. In the evening, even if I don't have something scheduled, things come up. This doesn't happen in the morning.

My half marathon is now 5 months away. That's only about 20 weeks to get from a longest run of 4.5 miles to 13.1, so I really need to make sure training becomes a top priority from here on out. 20 weeks is long enough that I don't need to freak out, but with other races coming up earlier in the year, it is now much more crucial to my success that I am able to train consistently. Since I gave myself so much time to train for the half when I decided I wanted to do it back in August, I've had the luxury of being able to skip some training days during the week and not have it be the end of the world (although I have been faithful to my long run every weekend!). But I'm not going to have that luxury anymore, so I need to make it a priority that I can get enough training in every week. Since I can't always control the evenings, the only way to do that is to move running to the mornings.

This will be very challenging for me. As I've said before, I have a very difficult time getting up in the morning before I absolutely need to. I've tried to get into this habit before and have been unsuccessful every time, so if I want to make this work I'm going to need a good accountability system.

But I am also trying to think of all the benefits I'll reap from this strategy (not just the challenges!). Here are the notable ones:

• I will never have an excuse to miss a day of training
• ...therefore, I will be able to stick to a more consistent schedule
• My body will adapt to running in the morning, which is good since most races are in the morning
• It will give me a boost going into my work day
• There is not as much traffic early in the morning
• The gym is not nearly as crowded in the morning (for when I do cross training)
• I can come home after a long day of work and not worry about getting my run in when all I want to do is relax, or missing it when an errand or something comes up

And that's just a few of the benefits!

Wish me luck, everyone!