[nate]

I hate running. I'd do it because it seems like the easiest way for me to get a cardio workout to hopefully live longer. But I couldn't get past some kind of 4 mile barrier in my head. It was just too boring. But I started pushing myself like 10 more feet every run. Why not just go to that next bench, that next tree I told myself. I'd make sure to even stop myself if I was feeling good. "Nope, don't go any further or I'll have to go even further tomorrow." It took a long time obviously, and eventually I started enjoying the runs more and more. The 10 foot limit got pushed longer. But I finally got to 11 miles and began to understand what everyone is enjoying in these long runs. Now I LOVE 11 mile runs and am sad I've had to stop doing them (covid related time yada yada).

And now I apply this pattern to a lot of things. I hate waking up early. Well... after months of inching up the wake up alarm I'm now a consistent 5:30am riser and dig the early quiet morning productivity.

This small, continuous, incremental that you barely notice stuff is a powerful weapon.

[01100011]

For me it took having a friend. We started out as two fat guys, bringing beer on our lazy hikes. Slowly we started competing with each other, trying not to let the other one get too far ahead. Over 2 years we went from lazy fat guys to pulling 12-25 mile hikes and running as much as we could tolerate. I ended up in a shape I never would have imagined, being overweight and un-athletic most of my life.

[abi]

James Clear's book, Atomic Habits (https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0...), is exactly about this. Really small, continuous improvements snowball into something amazing over time. I got a lot of value out of reading it, so thought I'd mention it here.

[noneeeed]

I think this is why the Couch-to-5k plan seems to work pretty well for a lot of people at the early stages. Just that gradual increase in distance/time each time you run, and a couple of months later you're running for 30 minutes/ 5km non-stop and it feels pretty great. I then worked from there all the way up to doing a 10km every weekend and the feeling was amazing.

Unfortunately, after we had kids I got out of the habit, put a load of weight back on and am now back at the beginning. On the plus side, I know what I'm capable of if I take it slow and steady, and I have two more reasons to look after my health.

I also read The Oatmeal's "The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons I Run Long Distances", which really just described my relationship with running perfectly.

For me, the boredom is also aleviated by copious stacks of podcasts. It's kind of my mental relaxation time. Half an hour outside away from the child induced chaos (which I love, but you need a break from it sometimes).