When you think about your favorite running movies, what are the first titles that pop in your head?
Chariots of Fire?
McFarland USA?
All fine choices, to be sure, but none of them crack my top 5.
Honestly, the first 5 running movies that pop into my head aren’t even running movies. Read more
I’m Denny, and I’m a runner.
Hi Denny.
I’ve been what I would consider a “real” runner for a little more than 4 years, and in that time I’ve gotten noticeably stupider. Or more stupid. Whatever.
In the real world, I like to think I’m a pretty intelligent guy, but since the start of 2012, my runner IQ has been trending downward as my mileage totals have gone in an inversely proportional direction.
Seriously y’all, how stupid are we?
Sure, there are numerous health benefits to being a runner. Running strengthens your heart and lungs. Running helps you lose weight and keep it off. Running helps tone and sculpt your legs.
Running also brings people together and can help to create friendships across generational, cultural, social, economic, and any other lines that exist.
But on the other hand… Read more
For even the most dedicated of runners, it is possible that over time running can become a bit stale.
Maybe running becomes a chore that “needs” to be done.
Maybe it’s something that you’re expected to do by others.
There are dozens of reasons running can become stale, but if/when it does, what can be done to make running fun again?
Kids Definitely Make Running Fun
Pretty safe to say that they are having fun.
I was having coffee recently with Nicole Welch from Rap with Nic.com, we started talking about our kids and the joy that kids have for running.
When kids are running, they don’t care about what other people are thinking. They don’t care about what they look like. They don’t care about anything.
They simply are fully present in the moment and are having a blast.
The joy is evident on their faces, and captured quite well in the above photo.
You simply can’t convince me that these kids aren’t having fun.
Just as their are many reasons that running can lose its luster, there are many ways that we can make it more fun again.
These are just a few of the ways you can change up your running in order to inject a little more variety (and fun) into your running routine.
But there are many others.
What do you do to make running fun when you find yourself in a running rut?
Leave a comment below, and let me know!
“Some of the World’s Greatest Feats were Accomplished by People Not Smart Enough to Know They Were Impossible.”
~Doug Larson
What a profound statement, eh?
Think about all of the things that were “impossible” until they weren’t.
The list of things that were thought to be impossible until proven otherwise can go on for awhile, especially if we expand beyond the realm of running.
Who Says Something is Impossible?
What is impossible in your life right now?
One of the life lessons I’ve learned as a runner is that we are very often our own biggest obstacle. We have this nasty habit of convincing ourselves that something is impossible before we’ve even given it a shot.
Think about it, have you ever said “Oh I couldn’t do that”?
Maybe someone asked you to run a 5k with them, and you didn’t think that was possible.
Or the first time you thought about running a marathon?
Or my personal bug-a-boo, thinking about racing longer than 26.2 miles?
“Oh I couldn’t do that.”
Bull shit.
We (and believe me, this is directed squarely at me as much or more than it is at anyone reading this post) need to stop worrying about what we don’t think we can do and put ourselves out there to see what really is possible.
Because if we allow ourselves to believe that we can’t do something, we have a 100% chance of being right. But if we give ourselves a fighting chance, we might surprise ourselves…
Now, I’m not saying that you can do anything you set your mind to, if you’ll just work hard enough.
The second time that I had Dane Rauschenberg on the podcast, he caught me off guard when he said that some things actually are impossible.
Not what I expected from a motivational speaker.
But as he elaborated on that statement, it made more and more sense.
Some things just aren’t possible. Allow me to be the example here.
It would be safe to say that I’ll ever run a sub-4 minute mile. For me, that is impossible. But can I get faster at a mile? Sure!
If I dedicate a significant amount of time and effort training to improve my time in the mile, I will definitely get faster.
Eventually, I’ll reach my peak where due to my genetics and physiology I won’t be able to get faster. I don’t know what that top speed would be, but it’s safe to say it’s much faster than I probably think I could possibly get.
By going after things that seem “impossible”, even if we never reach that goal, we will often go far beyond what we think we capable of and find out what our limits actually are.
And more often than not, that which we truly are capable of is mind blowing.
It’s time to blow your mind.
What are you currently preventing yourself from achieving? What have you convinced yourself is impossible, that you’ve never really even tried?
Maybe it’s running a 5k without stopping.
Maybe it’s running an ultra marathon.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter what “it” is. The fact is, we could all do a lot more than we’ve done before if we would dare to attempt that which seems impossible.
Do it.
What is Something That Seems Impossible to You Now That You’ve Never Really Tried? What is Holding You Back from Attempting the Impossible?
You know you’ve seen the meme…
There are a dozen variations that all basically say the same thing: that we as runners talk about running too damn much.
And you know what I have to say about that?
Deal with it!
You know why we talk about running so much? Read more