Thank you for joining me up through lesson six. I feel it’s time you should start to have an affair. Yes, a love affair with your running. And there is nothing more powerful to reinvigorate your passion for running like setting, planning, and executing a run challenge.
Now before you shake your head in disagreement and think a run challenge is not for you. Stay tuned, as there are many options and many possible suggestions on how to accomplish this irrespective of your current running abilities or fitness state.
Whether you can currently only run a kilometer per day or a mile or you have an excellent base. Maybe you want to focus on duration. in terms of a number of days. It is fully up to you. For example, planning a 365-day running streak offers the same benefits as does planning to run a kilometer every day for 30 days.
For starters, running every day contrary to popular belief is not bad for your health. Quite the contrary it will ensure that your cardiovascular health and fitness level increases dramatically.
From lowering your cholesterol to improving your heart, your lungs will grow accustomed to expanding and contracting more rapidly which means your respiratory system will become stronger for me. It's just nice to know that running every day can help towards stroke prevention or perhaps avoid the heart attack that might just be waiting for me.
Running daily will ensure you set priorities in your life and have the discipline to pull it through. This alone can and will lead to a major shift at a crossroads in your life you will look back at with pride. Good decision I took back then.
Did you know that running creates new synopsis of neurons in your brain? What it basically means is that as you are running, you are creating new connections which have proven to lead to faster thinking, being able to retain information. Is down to the aerobic activity which produces cortisol. U will be able to recall the information for longer periods of time.
Tell me what do you do when at work you’re frustrated, but you need to remain cool and composed to those around you. Then on your way home in traffic, you don’t want to be the person featured on the news channel displaying fits of road rage, do you? So what do you do with that big tense feeling inside of you? Do you lie in bed and wait for it to just disappear? Or do you perhaps vent it at those that are least to blame for it? Well, could there be any better reason than this one, to go out for your daily run challenge? To overcome that unwillingness, run, and release all that stress, all that hidden anger and frustration.
I am sure you have heard of the fact that elevating your heart rate Burns calories, which Burns fat means, you’re going to look absolutely amazing this summer.
In these lessons, we spoke a lot about getting out of negative thoughts, and letting go of limiting beliefs. But when was the last time you experienced a runner’s high? Running daily ensures that you get your own dose of inspiration, that sensation where your body releases endorphins become a desire that you want to fulfill. There will be a craving inside of you to achieve this, to repeat this
Don’t believe me? Well, numerous studies have shown that running streaks help people that suffer from anxiety or mild cases of depression. Once you’ve done it, you will understand how it can enhance your moods. Again from lesson 4 an emotional reference point.
Improved sleep comes about because all those thoughts that you have, are replaced by the flood of endorphins. This allows your brain to get into a much calmer state. Plus the increase of body temperature and the decrease after running make you fall into a deeper sleep state.
But what I mentioned above are all factually based reasons. You know the cartoon of the donkey that has a carrot dangling in front of it. Tell me, when will the donkey go for the carrot?
Correct, if it is hungry. If the donkey has just come from an all-you-can-eat buffet, you can dangle as many carrots as you like. It won’t move.
Sometimes, it takes a pitchfork, and you need to give it a slight, all you SPCA donors out there, a slight prod to get moving. That’s what we spoke about in lesson 3 point 3 – releasing your limiting beliefs. Imagine what could have been accomplished if you never had that belief?
And now I want to throw some real heavy statistics at you. Bear with me, it has to do with the C-word. Cancer. If ever there was a pitchfork, here it comes. According to medical science if you even run 1 mile a day you will have the following lower risk in percentages, pay attention:
- 42% lower risk of oesophageal cancer
- 27% lower risk of liver cancer
- 26% lower risk of lung cancer
- 23% lower risk of kidney cancer
- 16% lower risk of colon cancer
- 10% lower risk of breast cancer
How impressive is that? So what was your excuse again for not wanting to do a run challenge?
Let me add the real motivator, which is the emotional point deep inside of you. Imagine three months from now looking back at your calendar entry and you see 90 days of running.
Maybe someone comments on it "I could never do that", or "I just haven’t got the time"yes or do you but you got your priorities.
Imagine the pride, the deep feeling of satisfaction that you manage to run every day for 90 days. You did it, there were many reasons, many excuses not to go out running, u had some days your health was not hundred percent other days the weather was not to your liking. But you did it, you overcame obstacles, solved problems and made running your priority.
Remember a running streak is only possible if you are injury free. Your health comes first. You can always start again. Get healthy, let the injury cure itself, and then go for your challenge.
Avoid building another “what could’ve been, or what should’ve been season in your life”.
Feel that pain a little bit, those missed opportunities to go for your first marathon, your first trail run. Signing up for that 10K road race. Create that connection between two emotional reference points: joy, or having reached it. That run streak, that being a no excuses runner. Then the opposite: that pain, of having reasons, excuses, of not running. That pain of looking back at missed opportunities, "I don’t want to have in the future".
And that is how you find and build positive intrinsic motivation, step by step, running day by day.
For this lesson today, it is important to share it with you as I have worked with many runners who struggled with this. And what a joy once they reached their challenge. Very inspiring. For me, running is pure passion, and I want you too to develop and experience this.
My longest-running streak was 14 months, during that time I completed numerous marathons and ultramarathons plus a charity event where I ran 12 marathons in 12 consecutive days. It brought out so much creativity and positivity inside of me, I became an author and motivational coach on the subject of running.
One of the best decisions I took in my whole life and can surely be seen as my biggest running success. Look, if I am an ordinary everyday middle-of-the-pack runner like I can do this, you can do it too. Just do the first step and make every step count. Or as in this case like my book title makes 365 days count.
Thank you for listening to this course on Listenable! I hope you enjoyed it.
