akrish

Summer’s a great time to do all the things you’ve been wanting to do, but haven’t found time to do during the year. In my case, one of those things was regular, high-intensity exercise. Coming into the summer, I did what I do every year: I said I would devote my summer to serious exercise and try to develop a more regular exercise routine for myself. Every summer before this one, I’d exercise a couple of times, but I’d always get caught up in everything else going on, and undoubtedly working out would get put on the back burner. Something changed this summer, and I actually managed to start running and working out on a regular basis.

At the beginning of summer, I took my brother’s advice and set monthly exercise goals for myself. They were ridiculously ambitious, but it was motivation for me to strive to meet and surpass them. I also decided that since I wouldn’t have that much time to exercise (I’m working full time over the summer), I’d have to make the most of each workout and do very high-intensity activities. I started running on a regular basis, and eventually I’ve built the habit of running at least four or five times a week. It’s gotten to the point where I enjoy running and I actually look forward to my runs each day.

I used to run a bit during high school, but it was only as supplementary training for soccer, and I never really enjoyed it. Now however, I run for the sake of running, and I want to build up my performance so that I can start racing. The hopes of racing and competing is amazing motivation and really helps me push myself during my runs. I also really want to run a marathon in the near future, so I think of every workout as a step towards achieving that goal.

So what made this summer different from all the other ones? I think one of the biggest things is that I’m older and a lot more determined. I’m a lot better at following through with my goals and actually doing the things I set out to do. It also helped that I wrote down my exercise goals for the summer, and I look at them every once in awhile to re-motivate myself. It’s also a lot easier to make exercising a habit, when you have a daily routine that you can just incorporate your workouts into. For me, I had work every day, so I would go running every day before work (also before it got to hot outside). Compared to the last few summers, when I didn’t have to wake up at the same time every day, it was a lot easier to make running a part of my schedule when my schedule was already well defined. The last thing, and I don’t know how much of a factor this was, but one of the other interns at work is a marathon runner, and he has really inspired me to train. When I look back on how different this summer was from the previous ones, it’s easy to understand why I’ve been able to train so consistently.

Once you make running a habit, it’s actually really easy to get better and keep it up. I’ve been really happy with my improvement, and it just motivates me to run even more. One of the most important things, though, is that if I stop for even one day, it becomes really hard for me to start up again. So last week, I didn’t run at all until Thursday, because I took a day off the week before. On that Thursday, I decided to just go out for a slow run just to get back into things, and now, I’m back into my regular training schedule. Even if I go for a short or slow run, just running every day makes it so much easier to motivate myself.

When school starts in about a week, everything is going change. For one, my life isn’t going to be so nicely scheduled. On top of that, I’m going to have a lot more work outside of class, and finding time to exercise is going to be a lot harder. My hope is that I’ve made running enough of a habit that I’ll keep it up during the school year. Looking ahead, as my schedule becomes less rigid, I’m going to have to somehow incorporate running into my daily routine, so that I don’t lose the habit and have to start all over again.