Ep #26: Rebel Runner Formula – Consistency

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 26 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and today we are talking about the first step in the rebel runner formula, which is consistency. We’re going to dig in and find out exactly where you are right now with this important skill and then start talking about the tools that you need to improve. And then of course, we’re going to go right into my latest obsession this week, and it’s a big surprise, so make sure you stay to the very end to find out what it is.

So whether you’re a brand-new runner, an experienced pro, or maybe even just thinking about it because all your friends are doing it, I promise you are in the right place.

Alright rebels, do you remember what a rebel runner is? We talked about it a few episodes ago but I’m going to tell you about it one more time. It’s basically – a rebel runner is a woman who is a total badass rockstar who loves her body unconditionally and believes that she is capable of some pretty epic shit. And it is also really fun to say rebel runner.

Now, the formula to becoming one includes consistency, confidence, and community. Consistency is where you become a technically proficient runner. This is all about the skills of running, learning how to stick to a training plan, fueling your body for peak performance, and consistency is super important because without it, you won’t improve.

Now, confidence is where you become that inspirational runner that other people admire. It’s all about loving your body and yourself unconditionally, believing that you are not flawed at all, but rather that you are just a kickass human. And this is exactly where we kick that inner mean girl right to the curb.

Now, if you have community, you help lift others up so they can be their best selves too. Community is being an example of what is possible. It’s helping new runners who might not have the confidence that they need yet get it and excel. It’s teaching others to show up for themselves, showing up for yourself as well, and then celebrating your own wins along with others.

Now, each one of them is amazing all on its own. But when you start combining them, that’s when you really get somewhere. Consistency plus confidence makes you a badass, we love that. Community plus consistency helps you to learn your body unconditionally, and then confidence plus community give you that belief that you’re capable of anything. And when you have all three, again, that makes you that rebel runner. Total badass rockstar who loves her body unconditionally and herself and believes she’s capable of pretty much anything.

I mean, come on, that is a very cool state of being. It’s certainly something that most of my clients aspire to be. So anyway, if you’ve been on any of my webinars lately, you’ve done that assessment of all the parts of the rebel runner formula, and you know where you land in each of these areas. And by the way, if you don’t know about my webinars, seriously, you need to get yourself into the free Facebook group immediately and you can do that by going to notyouraveragerunner.com/jointhecommunity. I mean, I announce all of my webinars there as well as to my email list, so if you’re not on one or the other, you’re definitely missing out.

Anyway, for the past few weeks, I’ve been helping everybody in that group figure out in which areas they’re killing it and which areas need work. And I mean, people have been all over the map. Some of them are killing it in consistency but struggling a bit in confidence. Some are masters at community but lacking in consistency. So nobody’s perfect.

And a great thing about this formula is that it’s not a way to beat yourself up for not being good enough. It’s more like a GPS, like Waze, if you use that app on your phone. Now, if you’re traveling from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, your GPS needs to know where you’re starting so it can create a map to get to the destination. And the plan to get to LA from Philly is a lot different than the plan to get there from say, Austin, Texas. One is closer than the other. One is much further south. One might have a lot of congested highways in the beginning and one might have a lot of deserted roads.

And not that I’m saying Austin is full of deserted roads, but you know what I mean, right? The terrain is different. Like, everything is different about those two starting points, even though you’re going to the same final end point. And the paths do converge towards the end of the drive, but you know, in the beginning, they’re different. And neither of those starting points is wrong, it’s literally just where we are starting.

So over the next few weeks, while we’re talking about the different aspects of rebel runner behavior, I want you to keep that in mind. You need to know more than just where the finish line is when you’re trying to achieve a goal. You need to know where the starting line is too.

Now, because you can’t run a race without these two pieces of information, it’s important to assess where you are. And really, you can’t run. You cannot run a race if you don’t know the finish line. You can’t run a race if you don’t know where the start line is. You need them both. You’re not going to be efficient, really, without them at all. And your starting line is just that. It’s a place to begin, it’s necessary data so you can navigate your way to the finish line. That’s all it is.

And if there’s some of you thinking right now, and I know there are a few of you out there, I can feel you, thinking, “Oh, I have so far to go, I’ll never get there,” I really want you to remember that GPS analogy. So for example, if you’re in Philadelphia and you set your GPS for LA, you just follow the directions turn by turn. You know it’s going to take you a while to get there, it’s like 3000 miles, so there’s a – it’s going to take you probably four to seven days if you drive for eight hours a day.

If you get stuck in a traffic jam along the way you don’t think, “Shit, I better turn around because I’m never going to get there,” right? You just wait it out or you figure out a way to go around the traffic jam. If the road is closed, you find a detour, right? If you need to rest, you find a hotel and you take a break. You never actually question whether you’re going to get there. You just keep taking the next turn driving the next mile and then following the instructions, you arrive in Los Angeles.

So like I said, everyone has a different starting line and a different finish line, but the distance in between them is really irrelevant. So run your own race, figure out your map, and just keep driving that next mile, making that next turn. And just in case you’re wondering, I’m actually really good at helping people create maps to their destination. And whether it’s a 5K or a half marathon or beyond, I can usually get you there way more efficiently than you might do it on your own.

And that’s literally what we do in Run Your Best Life. We figure out your starting line and then I’m your GPS. I’m your Waze app on your phone to guide you to the finish line. And if you’re confused about either of those things, if you don’t know where you’re starting or you don’t know where you want to be, you should just join us over there so you can stop feeling confused and overwhelmed at all the information and you’re just going to get a solid plan to get you where you want to be. Also, we have a lot of fun in that group. There’s swearing, there may be pictures of sports bras, it’s all good. You can find that at runyourbestlife.com.

Okay, so now I really want to transition into consistency, and like I said before, this is the area that most of us think about when we decide we’re going to become a runner. It’s like when you think about running, these are the things that are top of mind, and it’s like learning how to run. Like, literally practicing and improving all of your skills, working on your form, working on your breathing, figuring out a training plan, your nutrition, training – like, how are you going to fit it all into your life, right? And all of that is wrapped up into repeating it over and over and over consistently to hone your skills.

So within the topic of consistency, there are three different areas to work on. And as I talk about each one of them, I want you to give yourself an assessment about where you are. So let’s figure out your GPS starting point. And the assessment’s going to look like this: green means you’ve nailed it, you’re all set, you’re pretty much already at the finish line for that topic, orange means you’re working on it, it’s in progress, and red means you’re just kind of starting out, you have quite a ways to go.

Now remember, again, none of that is wrong. This is just a way for us to see where you need to focus. It’s a starting point. It’s telling your GPS where you are right now so that it can actually give you an accurate map and directions to get you where you want to go.

Alright, just in case I didn’t mention it on the podcast where I introduced this whole concept, I need to tell you that as I was creating this framework, I was in the process of watching all of the Marvel cinematic movies in order from beginning to end. It was sort of like, an advance of the Avengers: Infinity War movie that came out couple months ago, and so my boyfriend was asking me like, “Hey, will you watch all these movies and then we can watch Avengers: Infinity War together and it’ll all make sense.”

So I watched Iron Man, Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, all that stuff. I absolutely loved them, which really kind of surprised me a little bit that I kind of became a huge fan. So while I was creating this framework, I was watching all those movies and I totally had superheroes on the mind. So just FYI, since I think that rebel runners are basically low-key superheroes, we are – there’s a lot of that terminology in the framework. I’m cracking myself up right here. You’re totally seeing the backstory of my life. And if my boyfriend is listening to this right now he’s cracking up too.

Anyway, so the very first part of consistency is to awaken your superpower. This is where you learn the basics of running. That is proper form. Getting your breathing under control, figuring out a run-walk interval that gets you that best combination of endurance and speed. And if you’ve been running for several months or more, you probably have a lot of this down, which is awesome. But I do find there’s often room for improvement, especially when it comes to that run-walk interval thing because a lot of people think, “I just need to run more and I’ll get faster,” and that’s not always the case.

But either way, nailing this area is crucial to becoming a rebel runner because everything kind of builds from here. It’s like the base of the pyramid. If you don’t have proper running form, which by the way, I talked about in episode 11, you’re going to be sore and extra tired after your runs. Now, if you don’t get the breathing figured out, which is in episode four, by the way, you won’t be able to go as far as you want to. And then if your intervals aren’t dialed in, check out episode seven for all of that, you’re going to tire yourself out and slow yourself down.

So in other words, the more you work on these basic skills, the better your training runs are going to be, and this is going to help you avoid quitting or giving up or undertraining for your races, and especially if you’re training for anything longer than a 5K. Like, if you’re thinking about a half marathon or even a 10K, like, this is where you really need to make sure you’ve got this area under control.

So we’re going to assess where you are right now. I want you to give yourself a green if when you go for a training run your breathing feels amazing, it feels great, very even and steady and under control. If you don’t have soreness after a run and you’ve got a run-walk ratio that keeps you going without feeling winded or exhausted, that’s all a green.

You’re going to give yourself an orange if you’ve got one or two of those areas figured out really well, like maybe your breathing is perfect but you notice your back hurts after a long run or you don’t have soreness after a run but your intervals feel kind of awkward.

And then you’re going to give yourself a red if you need help in all three of those areas. Or if you’re just brand new to running and haven’t even tried them yet, right? Again, it’s just a starting point, there’s no judgment. Green, orange, red, all the colors are beautiful.

Alright, number two, second thing within the consistency framework is to make your battle plan. This is where you formulate your success strategy. This is choosing the appropriate training plan, deciding which days you’re going to train and then getting them on your calendar and figuring out how you’re going to fit them into your schedule, especially those longer runs. And then arranging your schedule if necessary so you can get them all in.

Planning is key here but it’s not just planning. It’s planning and then following through on that plan. So, so many times I see people pick a training plan but they don’t check it against their race date and their personal schedule and then their first long run comes up and they realize, “Oh shit, I’m on vacation that week, I’m in Bermuda, or I’ve got a work trip or something, I can’t do my long run.”

So planning ahead is really, really important. Or the other thing that happens is they plan all of their runs in and then they decide, “I’m just not in the mood today, I’ll do it tomorrow,” and they quit on themselves, right? Remember episode 20, all about how to stop quitting. So planning is part of it and then the follow through is just as important.

Now, making your battle plan is also the block where we take a hard look at nutrition because an under-fuelled athlete is going to struggle. And we’re going to dive deeper into all of those topics over the coming months, but just like awakening your superpower, I want you to assess yourself in this overall area right now.

So give yourself a green if you’re someone who chooses her training plan, gets all her runs on the calendar, and is already running maybe three or four times a week like clockwork, somebody who rarely has runs where she feels hangry afterwards or where you feel like kind of shitty during the run, maybe literally or figuratively. And somebody who basically if you put a run on your calendar, it’s getting done. That’s a green.

I want you to give yourself an orange if you’ve got kind of a couple of those things figured out. Like, maybe you always write your runs on the calendar and you always get your long runs in but maybe you run out of steam halfway through those runs because the fueling piece isn’t quite right. Or you never have a problem with fuel but you picked the wrong training plan or when you write it into your calendar, it’s kind of hit or miss whether you’re actually going to show up and do it.

And then again, give yourself a red if you need help in all three of these areas. Or again, if you’re brand new to running, give yourself a red. It’s all good. It’s fine.

Alright, the third area that we’re going to talk about today, and this is the final one in consistency, this is where we take all the basics plus our battle plan/strategy that we’ve already created in the last one and we build on it. This is where we do things like speed work, hill work, stretching, strength training, yoga. Drills and supporting exercises that improve your form and your endurance, make you strong, make you flexible, support your body and your recovery. I would say sleep is probably in here too.

So these are more advanced running skills or more advanced just skills in general, and if you’re planning at some point to tackle maybe a half marathon or a 10K, or a full marathon, this is where the rubber meets the road. You’ve got to have this stuff dialed.

And I get it, most people don’t think drills are fun or track workouts. They’re not glamorous, right? So many of us, we’re like, “I just want to go out and run, that’s what I love to do. I don’t want to think about anything else except the next mile or the next interval. And I completely understand and honestly, that’s the way my brain works as well.

But here’s the deal. Doing those drills like sprints and hill repeats are what makes it possible for you to go out and just run. Doing the cross training, doing the strength training, making sure you stretch after each run or do your dynamic warm up before each run, taking a yoga class once a week, getting enough sleep. All of that is what makes it possible for you to go out and just run. And it’s easy to forget about them because you skip a yoga workout or you skip strength training, you can still run fine the next day.

Then you skip it again and again, but then one day you can’t figure out why your fucking hip hurts so much when you’re running or you know, why your calves are tight, and it’s basically because you haven’t been working on your running form, you haven’t been doing your drills or your strength and your stretching, and now you’ve got a muscular imbalance that resulted in an overuse injury, and now you’re not running at all.

So this is really important, and so many people think, “Oh, I’ll worry about the skills later.” I want you to worry about them now. So let’s do that evaluation again. I want you to give yourself a green if you’re regularly doing speed and hill workouts, if you’re stretching and strength training and your body is a finely tuned running machine. And let’s be clear on this. By finely tuned running machine, I don’t mean that you’re fast, I don’t mean that you run for miles and miles. I mean when you do run, you’ve got it dialed, okay?

Now, give yourself an orange if you’ve got two of these under control. Like, you always stretch after a run and you strength train every week but you’re like, fuck that shit, I’m not doing any drills. Or maybe you don’t know what drills to do. So just give yourself an orange there, or maybe you do a lot of hilly runs, you do a lot of repeats, but you haven’t paid any attention to strength training. So that’s an orange.

And then give yourself a red if you have one or maybe zero of these areas under control, or if you’re just brand new to this concept and you’re like, jeez, I really don’t know where to start. It’s totally fine.

Alright, so you’ve assessed yourself, you’ve given yourself green, orange, and red on each of the three areas of consistency, and now I have a really important question for you. What do you think it will do to your long-term success if you don’t take time to work on these skills right now?

Like, really think about this question because like I said, a lot of the stuff I talked about isn’t super fun stuff. It’s not the glamorous part of running, writing it in your calendar, doing hill repeats, like, making sure you get to a – or doing your stretching. Like, a lot of times when we finish running, we just want to go inside and take a shower. We don’t want to stop and stretch.

So I want you to think about like, what lacking in each of these areas is going to do to your long-term success if you don’t improve and are you willing to make that trade, right? Because basically, you might finish your races but it’s not going to be a super fun experience, or you might actually show up to the start line and then give up halfway through. Like, if it’s a half marathon and you haven’t like, really been consistent with your training plan, you’re going to be undertrained and maybe at mile eight you’re like, shit, I can’t finish, I have to give up, and then you feel not so good about that, right?

So you might even – if you’re training, if you’re really undertrained, you might do what I did for my first half marathon, which is I didn’t even show up. I didn’t even go. I just said, you know what, I’m undertrained, I probably – and I felt awful about it because I knew everybody else that had signed up for that race, they were out there running my race without me and it broke my heart. So that’s one thing that could happen.

Another thing that might happen is you’re going to get all these like, little niggling sorts of aches and pains and you’re going to say, “Oh, it’s just part of getting old,” and then you’re just going to have to do a lot of management, like a lot of taping, a lot of Ibuprofen, a lot of extra ice pads -just so that you can keep running relatively pain free. What if instead of doing all that stuff and spending all that time, you did some drills and some strength training once in a while, you might find out that they actually go away.

Okay, so here is what I want you to do. I want you to think about all the three areas that we talked about in the consistency realm, decide which of them is your strongest area and where you think you need work, and then make a plan and get busy. Make a plan and work on that shit every fucking day. Or, I have another idea for you. You can join Run Your Best Life and we’ll work on it together.

Alright, so this week I want to tell you what I’m currently obsessed with, and if you’re in the Facebook group you may have already seen me tease out this announcement, but it’s a big one. Drum roll please, it is t-shirts. We’re going to have Not Your Average Runner t-shirts very, very soon in my shop.

So you’re going to have t-shirts – there’ll be tanks, and there’ll be shirts with sleeves, and I was tempted to make it only tank tops just so that if you wanted to wear one you had to show your arms, but then I was like, some people want to run in the winter so there will be shirts that have sleeves. But they’re all going to have fun running sayings on them and then you can buy them, you can wear them just around town or you can run in them, they’re going to be amazing.

And as soon as they’re officially available, I’ll be making an announcement in the Facebook group. It’ll be probably about two weeks from now, from when I’m recording this, so maybe a week or two from when you’re hearing it. Just get yourself in the Facebook group or get yourself on my email list and you will be notified when they’re available.

And before you ask because I can hear some of you, the wheels turning, yes, there will be several shirts with the word fuck on them. You are welcome.

Alright rebels, that is it for this week. Everything I mentioned in this episode can be found in the show notes at notyouraveragerunner.com/26, including links to the other episodes where I have already reviewed some of the skills that we talked about.

And if you have decided that you’re ready to get started with running, if today is that day for you, all my talking about it and swearing about it has tipped you over the edge, I want you to head to my website and grab your free jumpstart plan. Run on over to notyouraveragerunner.com and you can just give me your email address and I will send it to you and then you can get started and it’ll be amazing.

And if you’re in the Facebook group and you’re just starting the jumpstart plan, like, go ahead and tell people what you’re doing because there’s a lot of other newbies in there as well that are doing the same thing. So I want you guys to start connecting with each other and realize that wherever you are to start on your journey is a beautiful place. That’s it for the week and I will see you next week. Bye

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.