Morning runs never cease to impress me with how energized I feel at the start of the day. That being said, the hardest part of the morning run is waking up early. Given the current COVID environment, morning runs are the only outside runs that feel safe. I like to believe that there are the fewest people in Prospect Park early morning, but maybe there’s a counter-intuitive group-think affect that results in everyone jamming the park visit at the same time. It’s an interesting social dynamics analog to market herding irrationality.

In anticipation of the SeaWheeze half marathon this August, I aimed to run 350 miles this year. I’ve only clocked 60 miles, which leaves a balance of slightly over 8 miles/week for the rest of the year. Folks who live the running lifestyle, might scoff at such a measly target. For me, this has become an eye opening experience in goal prioritization. Running training competes with BJJ training, both of which are curtailed by COVID. I find that when I have competing, equally important goals, they need to be reasonably achievable – otherwise I’ll slide down the path of least resistance and prioritize the easier goal. Goal attainability keeps motivation alive and stretches you to reach the next step. I’ve yet to downsize either goal because I loathe goal revision. It feels like a slippery slope towards capitulation or excuse mongering. This is something I’ve been working on as I recognize it as a remarkably inflexible and perhaps unhealthy attitude (spontaneously inspired, I just revised the run goal to 300 miles).

My relationship with running is fairly utilitarian, like flossing teeth or getting a haircut. Everyone runs for their own reasons – here’s an entertaining comic from the Oatmeal describing “The Blerch.” I run because it’s an easy, mindless way to stay healthy. It’s become so routine that my body recognizes when a run is overdue. I don’t run particularly quickly or far. I run the same repetitive route, only incrementally increasing pace over the season. I run only two paces – an easy “just finish” pace and a “go for broke” pace. I stopped listening to music while running years ago. I find it hard to concentrate and think seriously while running – my mental cache gets shaken loose. To keep my mind occupied, I’ve tried a bunch of things: counting steps, long division, finger typing Dvorak, brainteasers. Recently, I’ve started listening to podcasts, largely enabled by getting a minimalist running belt and wireless earbuds (I can’t stand the jostling of wired earbuds or a subtle left/right imbalance). My favorite podcasts are “How I Built This with Guy Raz,” which I only listen to while running. These inspirational stories make strong impressions in my tabula rasa mind during the run.

As a final aside, I’m impressed with the analytics on my running app Strava. The app tracks your run statistics in the context of all previous similar runs – probably a clever fuzzy matching algorithm.