Running Consistently

No run for me today. I was feeling some pain after the run yesterday so I decided to slow down a bit and just do brisk walks around my neighborhood today. It was a pleasant day for a walk anyway. I ended up taking a 50-minute walk.

This 50-minute brisk walk resulted in 5,400 steps on my watch. This got me thinking: I've occasionally encountered walking goals like '10,000 steps per day' so based on what I did today, I'd need more than 1.5 hours to achieve that goal on a consistent basis everyday! Sounds tough, frankly, especially if you have a lot responsibilities to deal with every day (family, work, etc).

In any case, this then lead me to reflect on the word 'consistency'. I'm not sure what the official definition of consistency is with respect to running. Personally, I think consistency is all about being able to finish your run in any condition, that is in good days as well as in bad days. It doesn't matter if you take twice the time to run. The important thing is to run and complete your run. Stick to the schedule even on bad days or on lazy days. You'll definitely be rewarded once you've recovered from those bouts of laziness. (Of course, if you're sick, that's another matter -- you better not be running until you've physically recovered).

Adopting an active lifestyle involves not just having your body respond to its physical demands, but it involves a lot of mental discipline as well. In my experience, it's the mental discipline that's the tougher aspect to develop.