Five Ways to Keep Your Running Regular

Once you become a runner, it affects you and your life in so many ways that sometimes we don’t even know about all of them. Running not only transforms our bodies but also positively changes our minds. Often, knowing these things is not enough to run consistently. The good news is that there are many ways for you to stick with running.

These are five effective ways to make running part of your life.

Make it a habit

You need to make running a habit for yourself. Best practices say that building it must include these:

• Start small. You don’t need to run 5km each time. You don’t even need to run 1km. Keep it small and increase incrementally. It doesn’t matter how long your runs are in the beginning, as long as it happens consistently.

• Make it easily accessible. Another trick is to keep your running accessible. This means that you should prepare your food, bottle of water, and running shoes the day before and leave them in a visible and convenient place.

• Award yourself. This is a good way to keep enjoying running. After a whole week of consistent running, you could be rewarded with a food you love or a leg massage.

The longer you stick to it, the less effort it will take each time to put on your shoes and go out for a run.

Set a goal

Sign up for a race. It doesn’t need to be a marathon or half-marathon, but it has to be long enough so you have to prepare for it. Choose a challenging distance. In that case, there would be no way for you to run it without preparation.

Importantly, that race must also be in the near future, not in one year or even later. This way, you will press yourself to start and stick with the training schedule. You could also tell your friends, co-workers, and family members about your plans. Once you have doubts about today's run, they will be your support and motivating group.

Join a running club

Another way to keep running regularly is to join like-minded people. They will help you to stick to your plan, and in return, there will be days when you will motivate someone to run as well. That’s a very rewarding feeling. Sharing stories while running or enjoying achieved goals is always very gratifying.

You could also have a friendly competition within the group. Setting achievable goals for everyone to aim for keeps the activity more engaging. Whatever you do, it’s always more enjoyable while in the group.

Don’t feel like joining a group of people running together? Consider having a personal running coach. Plenty of people are willing to help other people get into running. If you don’t believe it, contact me, and you’ll see.

Keep yourself motivated

There are ways to keep yourself motivated. Use these to your advantage.

• Track your progress in running apps.

• Share your runs on social media.

• Listen to an interesting audiobook while running.

• Reward yourself with the running gear you love.

• Remind yourself about all the benefits of running, you know.

Don’t forget that these might change over time. Experiment and find the best ones for you.

Don’t overdo it

Running regularly doesn't mean you need to run daily. In fact, it is not even advisable to run daily. You need to give your body time to recover.

This one is counterintuitive. The fastest way for you to start hating running is to start running daily. Don’t do it even if you feel a burning desire to do it initially. Savor that feeling. After a day, you will want to run even more, and your legs will be rested and ready for the next run.

To sum it all up - we are all unique and run for different reasons. So, there are more ways to keep yourself running regularly. Some things that work for some might not work for you, and vice versa. Keep looking if you haven’t found it, and one day, you will. Once you have, it will put your life on the next level.

Keep on running!