Consistency is Everything

Cliché? Probably. But it is absolutely true. This applies to everything in life, not just training. But for the purpose of this post, lets talk training.

Some people think I’m crazy, but I’ve always enjoyed running. I’ve had aspirations to be good at it. Or at least what I deemed to be good. I had one problem: I was never consistent. I would run here and there. A couple weeks at a time. Maybe even a month or two. But then I’d fall off. Months would go by and I’d pick it back up. It was a never ending cycle. Because of this, I never really experienced any amount of improvement.

About half way through June of this year, I decided to change that. I didn't sit down and come up with any fancy plan. I knew what I needed to do. Be consistent. I knew if I ran at least three to four times a week on a consistent basis, I would start noticing changes.

In order to add some more structure, I needed to determine the distance that I wanted to achieve something at. I decided to start small: 5 kilometers. 3.1 miles. Out of shape and inexperienced, my best 5k at the time was 27 minutes and 48 seconds. This had to change.

Early on it was very hard. Running just three miles was rough. Not to mention the area I live in has a lot of hills making things even harder. But before I knew it, three mile runs became four mile runs. Four mile runs became five mile runs. Next thing I know I was running 10k (6.2 miles). And at the same time my perceived effort on each run was dropping and my speed was increasing.

From the point when I started, I never missed a run. Before I knew it, on September 15th I ran a 5k personal best of 24 minutes and 30 seconds. And the craziest part about that run was I did not even set out with the intention of running a personal best that day. It just happened. All because I finally became consistent and stuck to something.

Consistency leads to results. Results lead to motivation. Motivation leads to more consistency. This is my new never ending cycle.

“It’s better to be consistently good than to be occasionally great.”- Nick Bare