Building a running habit that lasts

Learning from Gretchen Rubin and Flannery O'Connor

I took this photo last week at my favorite place to run here in Atlanta, the big, wide trails that wind alongside the banks of the Chattahoochee River. Almost every time I run there, I see flocks of geese and ducks out on the water, families of deer on the edge of the woods, and even the occasional snake slithering by.

For someone who spends most of his workday basking in the soft glow of a computer screen, it’s a welcome change of scenery. So much of my day is spent doing virtual things, it’s refreshing to experience something tactile — the feeling of rocks and gravel under my shoes, the warmth of the sun on my skin, and the humidity in the air as the morning fog burns off the surface of the river.

Even though I don’t know them and they don’t know me, a few faces are becoming familiar to me when I’m on the trails there during the week. They have no idea, but each has become a kind of silent running companion, a familiar sight that makes the trails there just a little bit friendlier.

This past August’s unusually (for Atlanta) cool temperatures have given way to late season heat in September, but that hasn’t kept me off the trails. That’s because once the school year started for my son, I’ve been able to drop him off and drive around the corner to the park, where I can get my run in and be back home in time for work by nine.

Contrast that with my other option: pulling my treadmill out of the corner to run in my (mostly) windowless basement. No contest, right?

I think that’s why, for me, getting back into a sustainable running habit hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be after I injured my foot back in the late spring and had to take a few weeks off to rest. Running out in nature along the river adds something to my day I love doing, so I feel a natural pull to do it — I don’t have to push myself.

There have been times in my life when this was a much harder struggle for me. When I couldn’t seem to create a running habit that lasted beyond a couple of weeks; something in my life would get in the way, or my motivation lagged. And once I fell out of the habit, it usually took me weeks to re-establish it.

Someone whose advice I’ve turned to on this is author Gretchen Rubin, whose best-known book is probably 2009’s The Happiness Project, whose subtitle I particularly love: “Why I spent a year trying to sing in the morning, clean my closets, fight right, read Aristotle, and generally have more fun.”

She followed it up a few years later with Better Than Before, which I’ve been diving into lately because it delves into the nitty-gritty of how to develop better habits (something I’m also trying to do in other areas of my life beyond running, as we’ve talked about).

Early in the book is a chapter on scheduling — “if it’s on the calendar, it happens,” Rubin writes, with the obvious implication that if it isn’t, it doesn’t. Of course, I get how this sounds. I don’t need to explain that if we want something to be a part of our lives, we have to schedule it.

It’s so tempting to dream about doing something and think, in the back of my mind, “of course I’ll find the time to get around to this.” That I’ll feel the inspiration when I need to feel it, and then go and do it, whether it’s a run, or writing, or anything else.

But things don’t just happen, as someone told me once. People make them happen. And creating new habits is up to each of us — we have to schedule a specific, regular time when we can do something we want to do, or else it won’t. As Rubin writes early in the book:

It’s tempting to pretend that I can do everything if only I get the “balance” right, but scheduling requires choices. Scheduling one activity makes that time unavailable for anything else. Which is good — especially for people who have trouble saying no. Every week, [my daughter] Eliza and I go on a “Wednesday afternoon adventure” (though we’re not particularly adventurous, and usually end up at a museum). Especially now that Eliza is in the tricky teenage years, I want to make sure we have some pleasant time together each week. So I put our adventure on a schedule, and if I’m asked to do anything that would interfere, I say automatically, “I’m not available at that time.” Scheduling makes activities automatic, which builds habits.

Lasting habits share three qualities, she adds: “consistency, repetition, and no decision.” That last one is especially important, she adds — if we have to spend time deciding whether to, say, go for a run or meditate or write, the weight of all that decision-making energy will wear us down.

Better to build a strong enough habit so you don’t have to think at all — so you’re there when good things happen, and you’re there even if you have a mediocre run (or writing session, or meditation session, etc.) You can’t control the outcome; you can only control whether you’re present and engaged in the effort.

Flannery O’Connor, the novelist and short story author whose lupus kept her confined mostly to her Milledgeville, Ga., home for the last dozen or so years of her life, shared a similar outlook when it came to her approach to craft:

I am a full-time believer in writing habits, pedestrian as it all may sound. You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows away. I see it happen all the time. Of course you have to make your habits conform to what you can do. I write only about two hours every day because that’s all the energy I have, but I don’t let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place. This doesn’t mean I produce much out of the two hours. Sometimes I work for months and have to throw everything away, but I don’t think any of that was time wasted. Something goes on that makes it easier when it does come well. And the fact is if you don’t sit there every day, the day it would come well, you won’t be sitting there.

What O’Connor says here in a letter to her friend Cecil Dawkins (and collected in 1979’s The Habit of Being), I find describes my experience perfectly. The things we love to do are “simply something that has to be assisted all the time,” or they “dry up and blow away.”

As we get into the middle weeks of our training program, this is the time when the enthusiasm you felt at the beginning can start to flag. When you can start skipping running days here and there. (And that’s okay — it happens!) Consider that it may be a signal that you might need to create a stronger pull, like scheduling your runs with a friend or in a place you love to run.

As always, keep in touch and let me know how your running/life/etc. is going — I always love hearing from you all.

Your friend,

— Terrell

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📸 Share your photos

If you haven’t already, download the Substack app to chat with me and fellow readers anytime — we’ve just added photo replies so you can snap a pic of your run and share it with the group!

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Our training miles for this week

If you’re following the 12-week training plan, last week you ran 22 miles — which is a huge accomplishment! 🙌 (And if you’re following the 16-week plan, you’re not far behind — you ran 16 miles last week, which is awesome too.)

Have questions? Feel free to give me a shout anytime — I’d love to hear how it’s going for you. Here are our miles for the upcoming week:

For the 12-week plan:

• Thursday, Sept. 29 — 4 miles/40-45 minutes

• Saturday, Oct. 1 — 7 miles/70-75 minutes

• Sunday, Oct. 2 — 3 miles/30-35 minutes

• Tuesday, Oct. 4 — 4 miles/40-45 minutes

• Wednesday, Oct. 5 — 4 miles/40-45 minutes

The 16-week plan:

• Thursday, Sept. 29 — 5 miles/50-55 minutes

• Saturday, Oct. 1 — 7 miles/70-75 minutes

• Sunday, Oct. 2 — 2 miles/20-25 minutes

• Tuesday, Oct. 4 — 5 miles/50-55 minutes

• Wednesday, Oct. 5 — off

The 10-mile training plan:

• Thursday, Sept. 29 — 4 miles/40-45 minutes

• Saturday, Oct. 1 — 6 miles/60-65 minutes

• Sunday, Oct. 2 — 2 miles/20-25 minutes

• Tuesday, Oct. 4 — 4 miles/40-45 minutes

• Wednesday, Oct. 5 — off

Let me know how it goes, and don’t hesitate to reach out! — Terrell