Jogging Home

Finding the time to go jogging is often the main hurdle all of us face. One of the obvious solution is to wake up early to go out there, but speaking from experience, it can be hard to find the motivation. However, as I've mentioned before, I often then feel much energized for the rest of the day when I do get up early, but that's another topic.

Another option is to run after our regular day, which has the great benefit of relieving some stress. But instead of waiting to return home before heading out for the jog, why not run home from work? It needs some preparation, perhaps leaving your work clothes in a bag to pick up the next day.

Use Goohoo maps or any other service to find the best course, print it if you need to, and then it's time to hit the road. When I plan my runs from maps, I usually try to find places of relative interests, like riversides, parks and so on to make the best route. When I get used to the course, I often diverge from it just to spice things up; you never know when you'll find something interesting like a good gyouza place, a cool record store or a bar to go to in the future.

I ran home last Wednesday and it was a hard one. For one, the distance is fairly long, over 10k. Also, it was raining that day, not that it bothers me much (although it was very humid, that did slow me down). But mostly, I had been exercising hard the previous days (intense capoeira on Saturday and Monday, HHH run on Sunday) and my legs were feeling it. At times it was a challenge to go on, but I'm proud to say that never did I even consider abandoning.

I guess this is the main thing I have acquired through regular jogging, it's the resolve to go the distance, just like poker players learning to go all-in. This is something that has also benefitted me in other areas of my life. Following a program and going through with it can be very difficult, but especially satisfying when we succeed. And because of this, my hat goes off to the coolest guy ever, the inspiration for this blog, Simon. He went from basically never exercising to jogging 28 minutes non-stop. Great job.