Lifestyle

Feeling a little better about the world at large today.

After my relatively frustrating weekend exercise wise I have started the week off on the right foot with a bit of a jog this morning.

Usually my program is that I try and run on Tuesday and Thursday nights. The Thursday run works pretty well, I coach at the track at 6:00pm and so I have about an hour between finishing work and starting coaching in which to go for a run. I am fairly consistent with that one.

The Tuesday run however has been a bit more problematic. With running on Tuesday my two choices are run during the day at lunch or fun after work. These days I find exercising during the day a bit hit and miss. In my old job I wasn't as busy and so had time to be a bit more flexible and as such I could fit in exercise during my lunch break. These days I am fairly flat out from start to finish and so fitting in exercise is ad-hoc at best. That leaves exercise after work. Running after work fits in okay, but once again these days that is harder to do consistently. When I was racing I could justify getting home late from a run and leaving my wife to do everything at home. Now that I am not racing it is a bit harder to justify that to myself. Also, after a long day at work it can be a little hard to whip up the motivation for an afternoon run. Hence my run this morning. Now that this run is done I can do one on Thursday and meet my goal of running twice during the week. Noice.

Really what the above is all about is figuring out how exercise works with my lifestyle.

People used to ask all the time how I fitted in my training around kids and work and family etc. The short answer, other than being quite selfish, is that all the sessions were organised to make them as logistically easy as possible. They were on the way to work, or the way home, or done during the day etc. The whole idea was to make them easy to access. As soon as a session gets hard to fit in with life it gets easier and easier to miss.

When I talk to athletes about training one of the tricks is to figure out how much training they can fit in their lives and work with that. It is no good me saying, 'ideally we will train 10 times a week' if they only have room in their lives for 5 sessions. I can put 10 sessions on their program but the reality is that they will miss half of them because they don't fit with their lives. Sure they would probably go quicker with a bit more training, but at least if I plan for those 5 sessions then I can make sure they are making the most of the training they are doing. Usually what happens is once they get the hang of those 5 sessions they start to ask for more and they figure out how to fit more and more into their days. The trick is to make a start.

The other thing I talk about with my athletes is ways that they can make training fit in more with their lives. People talk about exercise as being a lifestyle thing and I would agree. For me having exercise as a lifestyle means integrating it into your life. Exercise isn't a special thing you go and make a special effort for, it is just part of your day. If exercise can be properly integrated then it becomes a much smaller motivational burden. When you don't have to dig up motivation to get yourself out the door for every session, the getting out the door bit becomes much easier.

Running today fit in with my week much better than running on Tuesday night usually does. This improvement was significant enough that I may try and put a run on Monday morning most weeks. Really what I need to do is sit down and plan out my weekly exercise for after Busselton 70.3 when I will start having a bit more time on my hands. Putting together a plan like that will help me find the places that exercise fits best with my life, reducing that motivational burden. This will help me find the times and activities that will enable me to exercise the most consistently and sustainably. Once I have done that half the battle is won.