How to increase your training motivation in one easy step

Let’s face it: finding the motivation to hit the road can be a tall order for even the most dedicated runners—especially when they are forced to choose between a grueling training session and a leisurely social engagement. Are you going to tell me that Paula Radcliffe has never been tempted to ditch a mile repeats in favor of getting bloody right bladdered with her best mates? Bollocks!

But, as any experienced dieter will tell you, the best way to stay on track with a plan is to eliminate the temptation to stray from it. If there is no Nutella in the cupboard, there is no chance that you will spoon-shovel the entire jar of said Nutella into that vacuum of self-control you call a mouth, thus completely sabotaging the four ounces of lean protein and steamed vegetables you just choked down.

Similarly, if you eliminate the opportunity to go out, you will significantly reduce your chances of abandoning a run to barhop with your pals. And the best way to do that—the titular “one easy step,” if you will—is to completely isolate yourself from anyone with whom you have friendly relations. If you live upwards of 30 minutes away from your nearest friend, you’ll be much less likely to give into the urge to get your party on, which in turn makes you much more likely to resort to filling your free time with a nice, long run instead.  

Like, let’s say—hypothetically, of course—that a casual Internet search for nearby live music shows reveals that the “valley’s best Tom Petty cover band” will be playing at a bar less than two blocks away from your apartment—tonight! This piques your interest because Tom Petty—one of the greatest classic rock musicians of the last quarter century—is one of your favorite musical artists of all time, and the next best thing to seeing Tom Petty live and in concert is seeing the valley’s best Tom Petty cover band live and in concert.

However, further research on the concert venue—in the form of several exceptionally eloquent Yelp reviews—yields a slightly unsettling consensus: it’s a “total dive biker bar.” Unsure of what to do, you again turn to the Internet for advice because hey, you’re a blogger, and you know what you’re talking about at least 40 percent of the time. So there has to be someone out there with some insightful advice on the subject of young women frequenting drinking establishments alone. You enter the query “can women go out to bars alone” into the Google search field and hit enter. Upon perusing the results, you make the shocking discovery that when a woman goes into a bar alone, she’s sometimes assumed to be—get ready for this—a prostitute!   

And just like that, your dreams of rocking along to “Won’t Back Down” are dead in the proverbial water because—ironically—when it comes to prostitution (or even the semblance of prostitution), you will back down. On the plus side—there’s always a silver lining, folks!—once the option of going out is wiped off the table, running becomes a viable form of evening entertainment. More than viable, actually. As illustrated by the charts below, it is in fact the preferred choice.

Running

Drinking

Plus, depending on the intensity level of your workout, the end result could be very similar to what you might experience after a night of heavy drinking. You’ll feel tired, dehydrated, dizzy, and possibly even a bit nauseous. The only difference is that you won’t wake up with a hangover the next morning (yep, there’s that silver lining again!).