“If you do the 10km, I’ll do the 21km!”
These words fell out of my mouth somewhat accidently. That thing called enthusiasm encouraged them to roll off my tongue without actually thinking. Seven seconds later thought kicked in with a big dluh! I had just bet with one of my clients to do the Onehunga half marathon in May. Shit, now I really have to.
I started running 3 years ago – exactly a week after track nationals, my last bicycle race. It was the most unnatural thing in the world to do, and 2wks later I was injured. This, despite a methodical approach kept happening for the next 2.5years. Run, injury, run, injury. Eventually I stopped setting goals in fear that I wouldn’t complete them because of another darned injury. Toni finally found out what was wrong: 101 muscle imbalances from shit posture and too many years hunched over a bicycle, and desk. After almost a year of focusing on correcting my deficiencies here we are, which brings me to my next point.
Despite dispensing training programmes on a daily basis I suck at following them. Hindsight helped me figure out that a lack of confidence in my ability to achieve my athletic goals was the main culprit. If you don’t believe in your ability, then it’s ok to skip that training session, because you have no shit show in hell of achieving your aim for the moon goal, right? That was my delusion. So this is my bad habit. Setting goals too high, and then skipping training sessions.
Zen habits, one of the most read blogs in the world suggests these 3 things to change habits:
1. Select one habit for the Challenge. Only one habit per month.
2. Write down your plan. You will need to specifically state what your goal will be each day, when you’ll do it, what your “trigger” will be (the event that will immediately precede the habit that’s already a part of your routine — such as exercising right after you brush your teeth), who you will report to.
Plan:
- Run lots, build up to 80min (longest run) pre Onehunga. Elaborate excel spreadsheet – complete with graphs all devised and ready to be used.
-Trigger: injury thoughts! Not doing muscle balance exercises. Can’t achieve goal thoughts.
-Report to? Me, myself, I, blog, Amanda, and client.
3. Post your goal publicly. Tell as many people as possible that you are trying to form your new habit. I suggest an online forum, but you could email it to coworkers and family and friends or otherwise get the word out to a large group. Well, there you go world, blog posted.
3. Post your goal publicly. Tell as many people as possible that you are trying to form your new habit. I suggest an online forum, but you could email it to coworkers and family and friends or otherwise get the word out to a large group. Well, there you go world, blog posted.
4. Report on your progress daily. Each day, tell the same group of people whether or not you succeeded at your goal. Hmm… ok.
Progress daily- I don’t run daily. Then I’d totally wreck myself!
Last week’s goal: total 60mins running.
Last week achieved: total 60mins running.
Week 1 = on target.
Only 16 weeks to go…
33mins next weekend…
