Ep #81: Why It’s Good to Suck at Running

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who is midlife and plus sized and you want to start running but don’t know how, or if it’s even possible, you’re in the right place. Using proven strategies and real-life experience, certified running and life coach Jill Angie shares how you can learn to run in the body you have right now.

Hey rebels, you are listening to episode number 81 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and today we’re going to start with a question. Now, I know this is true, I know this is you, but have you ever tried something new to you, a new skill or a new activity, something you’re super excited about, and then you just completely sucked at it, right?

So it’s like, oh my god, this is going to be so amazing, it’s going to benefit my life, I’m going to have so much fun doing it, and then you completely suck. So basically, you just quit doing it after a couple tries. You’re pissed off, you’re annoyed because in your mind you’re already a pro at it but in reality, it was hard as fuck and it was not nearly as much fun as you thought it would be.

Running is like that for a lot of people. I mean, I have a million examples of what I just told you the first time I went axe throwing, which by the way, I still suck at it. The first time I tried knitting, the second time I tried knitting, the third time I tried knitting. I could go on and on, but honestly, when I think of that concept of trying something new and then not being good at it the first time and then quitting, the first thing that comes to my mind is running.

So if you’re brand new to running or if you were listening to this podcast thinking, maybe someday I would like to be a runner, Jill makes it sound so damn fun, I want to tell you that the first time you go for a run, it’s probably not going to feel the way you think it should. Like, those first 10 seconds of running, they’re awesome. Your brain, your heart, your lungs, your muscles are all like, this is amazing, we can fly. And then the rest of your body catches up, 20 seconds in you’re like, oh wait, this is harder than I expected, and then by 30 seconds in you’re like, WTF, my lungs are on fire and I want to puke.

This is how running works. By the way, it kind of works that way every single time, even if you’ve been running for years and years. But the problem is everybody makes running look so damn easy. They’re always trying to get you to join the club. Kind of like those parents who talk about how awesome it is having kids, like your whole life is going to be so amazing.

And then you have them and you realize that all of that awesome stuff also comes with no sleep, cleaning up poop and vomit every day, indefinitely almost, and all of your money disappears. And you’re like, wait, what just happened? This all looked so easy when my friends post of about it on Instagram but in reality it’s totally different.

Running is like that with a little less poop and vomit. There’s some poop and vomit, but much less than if you have children. The thing is awesome takes practice. Easy takes practice. We all want to be great at something the first time we do it, and running is no exception. And we think if it doesn’t feel good when we do it that first time or the second time, if it’s not easy for us that something has gone horribly wrong.

We think because we’re human with two legs, that we’re bipedal, that running should come instinctually. And actually, it kind of does. We’re definitely built for it. All of your entire skeleton is built for long-distance running. It’s how we evolved. It’s awesome, but you don’t come out of the womb running the way you do say, breathing.

You don’t really have to learn how to breathe. One quick smack on the ass after you’re born and like, you’ve pretty much got it. But you have to learn how to crawl and then walk and then run. You have to develop the motor skills, you have to develop the muscular strength, you have to make those mental connections between when I take this movement this is what happens. Like, it’s a process.

Takes a couple years for toddlers and just think about those toddlers that are learning to crawl and then walk and then run. How many times do they fall down? They don’t just one day – they don’t watch another toddler crawling and they’re like, boom, got it, nailed it. They crawl, they faceplant, they – I love watching little kids learn how to crawl and then walk because there’s a lot of faceplanting, there’s a lot of like, falling on their ass. There’s a lot of all kinds of things that if you were an adult, you’d be like, pretty embarrassed. You’d be pissed off, you would just say, fuck it, I’m not going to do this anymore.

But toddlers, they fall down as many times as it takes to be able to keep their balance and take those first steps. It might take weeks, it might take months. I don’t have kids, but I have a lot of nieces and nephews and I’ve watched them do it and it is not an easy process. And if toddlers decided to quit after failing a couple times, the world would be full of giant toddlers sitting around just waiting for it to be easy, expecting people to come and serve them.

A toddler does not get pissed off and quit when she falls down. She might cry if it hurts or if it’s surprised her. Totally fair. But she doesn’t make it mean anything about herself. She doesn’t say, I’m such a failure, people are laughing at me, all the other toddlers are faster, I’m embarrassed because I still need to hold onto the coffee table to walk. I guess I’m not a real toddler because I can’t walk properly, because I can’t toddle.

Toddlers don’t have any of that bullshit story. We learn that when we get older but when you’re two years old, that’s not part of your repertoire. You’re just like, oh, I see other people doing this thing, I want to do it, I’m just going to keep practicing and fucking it up until I get there. She keeps going and going and going until she gets it, and then she learns how to walk, she walks a little farther and farther, and then she starts running a little bit and next thing you know, your kid can run faster than you and your life is never the same again.

The difference between a toddler learning to walk and run and an adult is that the toddler is willing to suck at it as long as it takes to get the result she wants. She does not judge herself. She just keeps trying things different ways, practicing, getting stronger until it works.

And being a runner, if you want to be a successful runner, it’s the same thing. You have to be willing for it to be hard and uncomfortable long enough for it to get better. That first run, that first 30 seconds where you’re thinking there is no way in hell I can do this for three miles, that is your starting point. It is the worst at running that you will ever be.

Remember that. That’s kind of fun to know. You’re like, okay, this is the worst I’ll ever be, I can only get better from here. And getting better at something – this is the bad news that I have for you today – it’s kind of a hard sell. It requires mental and physical discomfort for a while. Many times in a row.

Do you remember the book I talked about last week? It was called The 5AM Club by Robin Sharma. There is such a great quote from that book that I want to share with you and I actually posted it in the Facebook group this week because it’s just that good. I think I posted it on my own page too.

And here it is, “All change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.” So learning how to start running is hard and messy. That is just how it is supposed to be. The only time this is a problem for you is when you expect it to be easy and perfect. No matter what you’re trying to do, no matter what you’re trying to learn, perfectionism has no place in growth.

Let it be hard and messy, my friends. Let it be difficult. Let it suck. Let it be something you don’t love right away because if it’s something that you want long term, it’s worth doing the work. There is reward in doing things that are difficult. It doesn’t always feel great while you’re doing it, but you’re training more than just your body.

You are training your mind to do hard things. You’re also training your mind to stop judging and comparing, and that’s really the other part of being willing to suck at something, to be willing to suck at running until you get better. There is always, 100% always going to be somebody faster and fitter than you.

I don’t care if you’re a gold medal Olympic runner. There’s always going to be somebody better than you. At least one person somewhere. And there’s always going to be somebody making it look easy. So here’s the deal; what they can do is none of your fucking business. You don’t know where they started, you don’t know how long they’ve been running, you don’t know how much practice that person puts in every week, how long they were willing to suck at running until it started to look easy and feel easy.

You don’t know how much discomfort they are willing to endure to get better. You just don’t know. So comparing yourself to somebody else is really an exercise in futility. Like, oh it’s so easy for that person. So? None of your damn business. And by the way, just because something looks easy for someone else doesn’t mean it is easy.

It mostly just means they’re not compounding the drama in their head by making faces and acting like they’re dying and complaining all the way through their run. There may be some drama going on in their head but they’re not showing it. Attitude is everything. Something that looks easy for someone else, you don’t know what’s going on in their brain. You don’t know what’s going on in their body, you don’t know how long they’ve been practicing.

So here’s the deal; I want you to start where you are. Wherever that is. And this is for running, this is for everything in your life. Start with messy. Start with hard. Start with imperfect. That is where awesome begins.

Alright, that was a pretty short little lecture I gave you today. I kind of feel like I’ve said everything I need to say about that. I don’t need to go on and on. So what I’m going to do is talk to you for another few moments about something super awesome and then I’m going to get to my latest obsession, which you’re going to love and I promise you’re going to love it and you’re going to want to order it immediately.

But first, I have an update on the 5K course that I think is really going to interest you. If you’re new to running, if you haven’t started running, if you’re just walking right now, you’re thinking about running or maybe you’re walking and you just like listening to me swear for 40 minutes every week, or if you’ve been running, you want to do a 5K, maybe you’ve done a 5K, fucked it up and you want to try again.

So any of that, if it’s you, we need to talk. So here’s the deal; I met with my team last night about our goal of getting a million more women up and running this year, and the reason we have this goal – I’ve talked about this in past podcasts but I’m going to talk about it again. Women who run, running helps women feel more confident.

Confident women make change happen in the world around them. They speak up when they see something that isn’t right. They speak up when something needs to be fixed or changed. Or they get to getting. They get busy and start fixing or changing it themselves. Confident women are unstoppable, and running helps women feel more confident because it teaches them like hey, I’m pretty badass, I’m pretty strong, I can do really, really hard things.

And so the Not Your Average Runner team, our goal for this year is to get a million more women up and running, and after our discussion about that last night, I was like, you know what, let’s see how many people we can get into the 5K course at this point. Let’s stop saying like, okay, we’re only going to hold it open for a few more people.

Like, let’s rock the house. Let’s get all of you doing it. So what I did, I dropped the price of the course by half. It’s $97 now. I’m trying to make it as accessible to as many people as possible. And if you’re already on the course or you know someone who’s been thinking about a 5K, keeps putting it off, do me a favor and tell them.

Tell everyone you know because like I said, running helps women. It’s way cheaper than therapy. It’s way more immediate than therapy. You’re having a bad day, oh, my therapist appointment isn’t until next week. Fuck that. Having a bad day, put on your shoes, go for a run. Instant mood changer.

So I really want to spread the word about this so like I said, we dropped the course cost by half, down to $97 to make it as accessible to as many people as possible. I want every woman in the world to feel as confident as the women taking this course feel and you can help by sharing the fuck out of the class, letting everybody know how running has changed your life.

Now, the course does start in just a few days. It might be a little hard and messy, imperfect when you first start. You’re going to go for those first few runs and it’s going to be hard and messy and imperfect. You might suck at it. You will probably suck at it. That is the great part. I’m going to be there helping you through it. I will be guiding you, making sure that you stay on track.

I mean, you can totally train for a 5K on your own. Totally possible. But if you were flailing in quicksand and somebody handed you a pole to help you get out, you wouldn’t say, oh no, that’s okay, I would much rather flail and sink. No, you’d say hell yes, give me that pole, right?

This class is your pole. So everything we’re doing there is going to get you to awesome. We’re going to practice for two months. If you’re ready to start running, you want to see what it’s like to do hard things, feel really freaking proud of yourself, for your accomplishment, this is the class for you. Couch to 5K in two months. I want you to go to notyouraverage5k.com to sign up.

Training begins on March 4th, which is just a few days from now if you’re listening to this on the day the episode drops. Tell your friends. Get your mom and your sisters to join in with you. In fact, I think we need t-shirts, don’t we? The rebel running army. So that’s going to happen obviously. Going to get the team on that immediately.

So just go to notyouraverage5k.com. Stop waiting around. It’s $97. Join up. If you’re listening to this after March 4th, you can go to the site, notyouraverage5k.com and there will be a little place for you to put your name on the waitlist for the next session. But this first session is going to be the most awesome one, so obviously you should join in.

Alright, my rebels, it is time for my latest obsession and this week it’s a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. Now, this is a book that I heard about it from Corinne Crabtree of the Losing 100 Pounds Podcast. She always has amazing book recommendations and I absolutely love the title, Atomic Habits. It’s like, blow your habits the fuck up and make them bulletproof atomic, whatever the metaphor is you want to use.

So, I bought it because I love the title and it did not disappoint. Seriously, I started reading the introduction and I was all in. I was like, oh my gosh. I got so much out of the introduction I hadn’t even started the actual book. So I even ordered the audible version so that I can listen to it in addition to reading it. I’ve already highlighted the shit out of it.

So anyway, the book is really game changer because it talks to you about why you struggle to install new habits, and then it gives you very well-defined systems, like actually processes to follow. And it’s not just one or two. It’s a lot. I’m probably going to just do a whole podcast on this book, it is that good. I’m definitely going to be begging the author to come on the podcast and talk about it.

Because after we talked with Gretchen Rubin, this is a great follow-on to Gretchen Rubin’s book and I’m just obsessed with habits lately because I feel like habits are the secret to elevating your life. So anyway, the book is a game changer. It’s called Atomic Habits by James Clear. Go get it and we’ll talk about it probably in a month or so. I’ll do a podcast on it.

Okay rebels, that it is for this week. Everything I mentioned in this episode can be found in the show notes. Notyouraveragerunner.com/81. Go sign up for the 5K class, notyouraverage5k.com and I will talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you liked what you heard and want more, head over to www.notyouraveragerunner.com to download your free one-week jumpstart plan and get started running today.