Week One

The theme of this week is “running smart,” meaning setting an intention for your run and sticking to it. So often, the goals we set for ourselves ahead of time get hijacked by competing needs in the moment. We swear: we’ll speak up the next time our partner hurts our feelings, resist the urge to fight with our parent’s the next time we’re home, not drink as much when we go out, set a boundary with our friends.

Yet, when the moment arises, our goals get lost—instead of “running smart” towards the intention we planned, we retreat back to something more familiar: a desire to be loved, a need to numb the pain, a concern for hurting someone else’s feelings.

Use this week to evaluate your relationship to your intentions. Reflect on the feelings that come up in your body when you abandon the goal you were aiming for—where do you go? What’s driving you? Do your recovery runs turn into a mad dash for a PR? Are you exhausting yourself in the first 5 minutes when you intend to start slow? Are you aiming to run 3 times a week, but find yourself overdoing it or avoiding the task completely?

How does this show up elsewhere? Are the feelings and drivers the same? How are they different?

Is there one place, in particular, that “running smart” applies most to your day to day life?

How might you begin to address that, today?