Ep #93: How to Plan Your Run for Better Performance

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 93 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and today we are talking about planning your training and setting yourself up for success so that you can stay motivated to keep training long term.

Because we all know it’s super exciting to sign up for a half marathon, it sounds like so much fun to cross that finish line, but then when the rubber hits the road, rubber meets the road and you have to actually do the training, that’s when things get a little weird.

So raise your hand if this sounds like you. You get this amazing idea to sign up for a half marathon. Maybe you listen to the podcast on setting big goals and you’re like, fuck yeah, I’m in, I can’t wait to cross that finish line. You’ve already figured out exactly where you are going to hang your medal on the wall and it’s like, four months away, you have just enough time to train, so you grab a training plan off the internet.

It’s like, three times a week, easy peasy. So week one you look at your plan and your calendar and you say yeah, I’ll do Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, perfect. And then Tuesday morning rolls around and you completely forgot that you planned to do your run before work and you realize it as you’re like, parking your car, you’re like, oh shit. Alright fine, I’ll just do it tonight.

But of course, you’re tired after work so you decide maybe I better do it tomorrow morning, and you do. You get up on Wednesday morning and it’s great, but of course it’s thrown off your entire schedule for the rest of the week and then you’re playing catch up the whole time. And Saturday is supposed to be your long run but then you forgot, oh shit, I have two graduation parties to go to and you decide fine, I’ll do it Sunday, but then on Sunday it’s raining so you end up cutting it short.

And then basically you repeat this pattern every week for a few more weeks, missing a third to a half of your training runs, then you start getting more and more stressed, and then by the time race day rolls around, you’ll full of anxiety, you’re wondering why you even signed up for this race in the first place, what a stupid idea, training is not fun, and you hate feeling this way.

Does this sound familiar? This is what happens when you don’t plan. Now, the problem is planning isn’t sexy. Planning doesn’t sound like fun to most people, unless you’re one of those people that like, gets off on Erin Condren planners and you know, kind of looking at weeks in advance and writing down every little thing, but I think those people are actually in the minority and honestly, I think most of those people actually just like the planner itself and executing the plan isn’t the fun part. It’s the actual planning.

And so planning isn’t super sexy but even if you do like to plan, the execution part is definitely not sexy. And so we kind of get all excited in the beginning when we think about our goals, because our thoughts create our feelings and so we think oh, it’s going to be so much fun to cross that finish line and we feel excited, but then when it comes time to do the work, we are like, shit, now what do I do? How do I make myself do this?

So planning is really critical to your success, and I’m not talking about an Erin Condren planner. I’m talking about actually sitting down and figuring out how you’re going to make all this stuff happen and being realistic about it. And it needs to happen on two different levels.

So the first level is very high strategizing, like looking at your whole training plan against your work and your family schedule and your vacation schedule and figuring out what are the days that are going to be best for those long runs so you don’t end up having to choose between running 10 miles and getting ready for your daughter’s wedding.

I think that’s the absolute easiest part of planning is just saying alright, I’ve got a 16-week training plan, that means I’ve got 48 runs to do, how am I going to fit them in, what are going to be my running days, and how am I going to fit those long runs into my schedule. Now, the hard part is really in the details, and this is where I want to introduce you to a concept called the 24-hour plan.

Now, I did not come up with this concept. I learned it from Brooke Castillo of The Life Coach School and of course, if you’re a follower of Phit-N-Phat, of PNP, you know that Corinne Crabtree teaches it as a foundational skill in her tribe and she just really – she’s amazing at it.

So basically, a 24-hour plan is where you make decisions ahead of time and you commit to them and then you make that shit happen. It’s where you figure out the daily things that you’re going to do to support your goals, and we do this one day at a time.

So without a 24-hour plan, you’re like the person I described at the beginning of this show. You’re always running behind, trying to figure out how to make it happen, you’re playing catch up, and when you just wing it like that, when you just say oh, I’ll probably do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday or whatever, and you just expect everything will work out, it might work out and it might not because you’re leaving it up to chance, and when you are training for a race, you cannot just expect to magically be in shape.

You can’t wish your body into the shape it needs to be for the race. You actually have to do the work. And I tell you guys all the time that training is 90% mental and 10% physical. When I say you have to do the work, I mean you have to do the physical work and the mental work, and the 24-hour plan is part of that 90%.

So it’s actually an extremely simple technique, and once a day, either in the morning or the evening, you’re going to take five minutes to plan out what you need to do in the next 24 hours to move you forward in your goals. And personally, I think it works better if you do it the night before because it’s very easy to skip that step if you’re running late in the morning.

Like, if you wake up in the morning and you’re like, I have to decide between doing my 24-hour plan and going to get my run, that’s a tough decision to make because they’re both extremely important. So just do it the night before is my advice.

Now, the 24-hour plan, the way I do it has two parts. The very first part is again, super easy. Make a list of the things you need to do. Maybe it’s run three miles, maybe it’s strength training, whatever it is, whatever those activities are that are moving you closer towards that race goal, then make a list of all the supporting activities.

How much water do you need to drink? What are you going to eat to support your running goal? Do you have to bring an extra snack to work or are you going to modify how you eat because you know you have a run in the morning? Whatever it is. Washing your running clothes, getting those ready ahead of time, although honestly, let’s be clear, not having clean running clothes is not an excuse ever for skipping a workout because you guys, they’re just going to be sweaty in an hour anyway.

So please don’t let that be an excuse to not do your run, but it is nice to run in clean clothes, so put that on your list if you need to do that. Getting your outfit together, making sure all your devices are charged. Whatever it is that you need to set yourself up for success, put it on the list. Think of the activity you’re doing, all the supporting stuff, write it all down.

And we’ve actually created a 24-hour plan journal page for you guys that you can download from the website, print it out, and use it, or you can just do it in your journal, or you could like, download the plan and look at it and say okay, this structure works for me and then do it in your journal. Whatever you want to do, it’s totally fine.

So that’s part one, and then that’s on the downloadable PDF that we’ve made for you, and so is the second part of your 24-hour plan. And this is where the real work starts to happen because I have some terrible news for you. When it comes time to actually go for your run, you are not going to want to go. I mean, maybe some days you will, but many, many days, you will not want to.

Your brain is going to have a million reasons why. It’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too early, it’s too late, it’s raining, it’s snowing, you’re too tired, your butt hurts from yesterday’s kettlebell workout. This is not a matter of if it happens. It is a matter of when. It will happen and this is where the second half of your 24-hour planning will save the day for you.

Now, I know it sounds simple. I’m just going to write these things down and I will magically do them. And I know there are some of you that think you’re already doing this, but if you make a plan and don’t follow it, your plan is not super helpful. You’re not committing. You’re just saying I hope this is what I do and deciding in advance is a whole different thing than hoping.

Let me give you some examples of what the difference is between deciding in advance and committing, versus hoping. We decide that we’re going to go to work tomorrow. It is non-negotiable. You don’t say, “I don’t know, I hope I make it to work tomorrow.” You just decide maybe the night before, maybe just in general like, this is a thing I do to move my life forward. You decide and you make it happen. It’s non-negotiable.

When you sign up for a 5K, you decide you’re going to show up and you don’t say, “Gosh, maybe I’ll do it, maybe I won’t, I hope I’ll get up tomorrow and go run that race.” No, you decide and you make it happen. You decide to get married and be monogamous. Maybe. Maybe if you’re not – monogamy is not a priority for you in a relationship maybe you don’t, but for those of you who are like, I’m going to be in a committed relationship and I’m going to not be with other people, you don’t say, “Gosh, I hope I don’t find myself in bed with another person.”

Nope. You get married or you make a commitment to somebody and you know, you decide to be monogamous. So these are examples of deciding and committing. You are 100% behind your decision, you make it happen, it is a non-negotiable. There’s no drama in your brain. Well, there may be a little drama in your brain about going to work, let’s be honest.

But really, it’s half-hearted drama because you know you’re going to go. There’s no question in your mind. You’re going to go. It’s just a matter of like, how much suffering is going to happen before you get there. And the reason you commit is because you really want the results of taking those actions. You want to get that paycheck. You want to get that race medal. You do not want to get divorced.

You want the results or you don’t want the consequences, so you commit, you execute your decision, it is non-negotiable. You don’t wait until Monday morning when the alarm goes off to see if you feel like going to work. You’re never going to feel like it. But you still get up and go. It’s a decision that you made and you don’t deviate.

Here is what hoping looks like. Hoping is like, I’m going to run three times this week, maybe Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. We’ll see what the weather is like. Hoping is setting your alarm for 5am to go for a run and then staying up until 1am watching TV and wondering why you’re tired the next morning.

Hoping is hitting the snooze alarm and saying you know what, I’m just going to go tonight or tomorrow instead. We all know that’s bullshit. That’s what hoping sounds like. So how do you decide and commit to something? This is the second part of your 24-hour plan because commitment is a thought, you guys, and a decision is just a thought.

So is quitting. Quitting starts with a thought. So everything starts with a thought, my friends. Everything. And if commitment is a thought, you need to create committed thoughts. Your mind is going to have objections and you just need to create those committed thoughts in advance, and this is what you do in the second half of your 24-hour plan.

For example, you have a run planned for tomorrow morning. You know this. When the alarm goes off, you’re going to have a million excuses. So you need to plan ahead for them and create what I like to call counter proposals. We take all the drama out of it and we just have counter proposals to your brain’s proposal that you stay in bed.

So your brain’s going to say, “Hey buddy, it’s cool if we sleep in. It’s awesome. We can just go tomorrow.” You’re going to pull out your counter proposal and say, okay, I hear you, we could do that, but we will feel really guilty if we don’t go now, and an extra 30 minutes of sleep is not going to make a difference, but going for a run will set us up for today. Set us up for success today.

So that’s just your counter proposal. Your brain’s like, hey buddy, and your prefrontal cortex is like, okay, I hear you, but this is why we want to go. This is the consequence we’re trying to avoid or this is the result we’re trying to get. So in your plan, I want you to think of at least five excuses that you normally use and then come up with counter proposals.

And by the way, this applies to anything you’re trying to do really, not just running, but we’re talking about it in the context of running for this podcast. Preparing how you’re going to respond to your brain’s natural inclination to want to do the easy thing is so critical to your success because you can plan all the things, you can write them down, but until you take action, they’re just words.

And I keep thinking of that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry gets a rental car and he makes a reservation for a rental car and then he goes down to the rental car place and they’re like, we don’t have your reservation, or we don’t have a car. We have your reservation but we don’t have a car and he’s just like, I don’t think you understand how reservations work. Anyone can just take a reservation, it’s the holding of the reservation that is the important point.

And that is what plans are like. Anybody can write down a plan but until you implement the plan, until you execute it, it’s just words. So, that is – the 24-hour plan – is not just writing down the things you’re going to do, but planning ahead for how you are going to make them happen.

So you’re going to take your excuses and come up with counter proposals, and then I also want you to create some overarching thoughts that you practice thinking on purpose, even on non-running days. Here are some examples that I use. I am committed to running three times a week no matter what. I am committing to getting up 30 minutes earlier to run on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, no matter what. I am committed to showing up prepared as fuck for this marathon, no matter what.

So I want you go to ahead, download our free journal page. You go to www.notyouraveragerunner.com/24plan and this is going to guide you in the process that I just talked about. There’s going to be some prompts in there and so forth. The link is also in the show notes but again, it’s notyouraveragerunner.com/24plan.

So I want you to do this plan daily. Make it part of your routine and then here’s the last part; allow yourself to suck at it, my friend because that’s the other thing. If you haven’t been somebody who plans in the past, this might feel awkward to you. You might resist it and you might even just skip it once in a while or you might write out your entire plan, it’ll be beautiful, and then you won’t do a thing.

And I’m raising my hand. I’ve been there. It’s all part of the process. So I don’t know if you remember back in episode 81 when I talked about how it was important to be okay with sucking at running, same goes with your 24-hour plan practice. Consistency is way more important than being perfect, and consistency means showing up, making that plan every single day.

Even if you don’t execute it, or even if you half-ass execute it, even if you execute 90% of it, the consistency of creating a plan, making that part of your routine and constantly looking at your success and your failures and like, learning how you can refine things so you get the results you want, that’s super important.

And then of course the final part of the plan is reviewing how the day before went. So I mean, you’re going to suck at it and you’re going to look at it and you’re going to make that okay, I fucked this thing up, neutral circumstance, how am I going to learn from it? How do I want to think about it? It’s all part of the process.

And my years in corporate America taught us this whole process of – they called it plan, do, check, and act, which is if you work in any kind of manufacturing business, you know some sort of cycle where you put in a plan, you execute the plan, you check on how it worked, and then you make revisions for the next day. Plan, do, check, act. Drawing the circle out from the logo from where I used to work. I’m drawing it, you can’t even see it.

But anyway, plan, do, check, and act, and that is what a plan is. That’s what the 24-hour plan is. Decide what you’re going to do, go do it, see how it worked, and then revise for the next day. Okay, so you guys, consistency with your planning is important. I want you to be okay with sucking at it.

We believe in Run Your Best Life that perfectionism destroys motivation. If you need something to be perfect, you are not going to be motivated to work on it. You’re going to give up and you’re going to quit, so work on doing that plan every day, allow yourself to fuck it up, learn why, and then do it again.

Okay rebels, before we wrap it up for this week, I want you to know two things. The first is that next week we’re going to be having an episode where we do another Q&A with me and Jen, so if you have questions, go ahead and drop them. You can put them on the website or if you’re in the Facebook group, you can go ahead and drop those questions in the Facebook group. Just tag me and Jen and say, hey will you answer this on the podcast.

We’re not going to be able to answer all of them but we will answer some of them. So that’s coming up next week, so you have a chance to – actually, that’s coming up next week and then we’re going to have another one in a month. So even if you don’t get your question in time for this upcoming one, we will catch you next time around. But go ahead and post those questions now.

Okay, the other thing I wanted to tell you is that you guys, we’re legit having the party of a lifetime over in Run Your Best Life right now. I mean, the 10K course is hopping, we’re doing so much work on mind management right now. We do it all the time, but I think this month we focused on motivation to start with as a starting point, but we are taking it to a whole new level and my mind is blown with some of the a-ha moments that our members are having and some of the changes that they’re making in their lives.

It just keeps getting better and better and it’s so much freaking fun. And if you’re not part of the fun yet, I am genuinely confused because I know for sure that this group will get you to a whole new level. Not with your running, not just with your running, but with your whole mindset and your whole life.

Staying motivated and excited, cutting out all that inner mean girl chatter, setting goals that you couldn’t even imagine last year, like, this is where it’s at, my friends. So we just added a new 30-day challenge to help our members embrace working on their thoughts, so that they can show up for themselves in a whole new way, and this is ditching overwhelm, anxiety, worry, panic, whatever emotion it is that’s keeping you stuck, this 30-day challenge is designed to help you unstick yourself.

So my friends, if you like what you hear in this podcast, if you’re like, this podcast is amazing and every time I listen I get one little tidbit that helps me with my running or helps me with my life, you get 100 times that in the Run Your Best Life coaching group. It is just the place to be.

So you can find that at runyourbestlife.com. It’s amazing. And just go over there and join. Just like, this podcast, we’re going to be over in like, two minutes, so just go over there and join. You will not regret it. Okay rebels, it is it for this week. You can find the transcripts of today’s show and the links for the free PDF download for your 24-hour planning guide at notyouraveragerunner.com/93.

It’s also in the show notes, and of course, if you want to join Run Your Best Life, which I highly recommend, go to runyourbestlife.com. Alright, that is it for this week my friends. Have a good one.

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.