Ep #152: How to Create a New Running Routine as the Country Reopens

If your mind is uncertain, there are no tips and tricks that are going to help you in the long run. You have to decide. Decide you’re going to figure it out, that you might make some mistakes along the way. That’s okay. But one way or another, you’re not going to give up your running routine just because you have to get up earlier now.

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who has never felt athletic but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running and life coach and I teach women how to start running, feel confident, and change their lives, and now I want to help you.

Hey rebels. How you doing this week? So I am not sure how exactly we ended up here in July when it was just February a couple of weeks ago. Is it just me? Is it time travel? Can somebody explain this? Because I do not understand. Who is feeling me on this? It’s crazy how fast this year is going.

Anyway, today, I’m going to address two common questions that I’ve been seeing lately in my coaching groups. And this really is the kind of stuff that we talk about inside of my coaching programs, my friends. It’s important shit.

And the very first one is it’s been a common question in the summer session of the Rebel Runner Roadmap. There are lots of people wanting to know how to take a post-run selfie that looks cute. So it’s actually not that hard. Just a couple tweaks to what you’re doing right now and you’re going to be all set and we’re going to cover that in a moment, but I also want to tell you about the second question.

The first one, the selfie one, it’s kind of fun. Definitely something I love talking about. The second one is a little bit more serious, I guess. It’s been coming up a lot in Run Your Best Life, and most frequently from the graduates of the spring session of the Roadmap.

So we did the Roadmap in May. These folks have been running all summer, they’re really enjoying their new running routine, and now that the country is reopening and a lot of people are actually going back to an in-person work situation, they’re like, oh shit, how am I going to reconcile this new running routine with having to get up earlier in the morning and take a shower and drive to work and commute and so forth.

And this is actually a great question to be asking right now, rather than a month from now when you’re like, oh shit, everything just fell apart when I went back to work in person. So we’re going to get it decided and sorted in advance today so that you don’t find yourself in that situation.

So let’s talk about selfies. Selfies are my favorite thing to talk about. Maybe not my favorite, but they’re up there. Anyway, it is super common to take a picture of yourself after a run. You see this all the time on Facebook. Like #sweatyselfie, right? And I am a fan of any post-run picture.

I don’t care what it looks like. I think every single one of those pictures is awesome because it is a celebration of your run. It is an acknowledgment that yes, I did it, and I’ve got the sweat stains to prove it. Now, if you have not been a part of – I’m air quoting here, selfie culture, for the past several years, you might not have quite learned the art of taking a selfie that you like, and that’s totally fine.

We’re going to talk it through today. There are a couple rookie mistakes I’ve seen y’all making. It’s super easy to change up that strategy to get a different look. So the first thing I want you to do is make sure that that camera lens is a little bit higher than eye level. Maybe forehead level.

Because a lot of people, they put the camera like, down around their chest, sort of looking up at their face. And if your camera is below your chin, guess what’s going to feature most prominently in your photo. The lower half of your face. And of course, you’re looking down at the same time, which means your chin might get lost a little bit in your neck, if you know what I mean.

And here’s the thing; people are like, “Oh my god, I look so ugly.” No, it’s not an accurate representation of your face at all. Because 99% of the time when people see you, they’re not standing below your chin looking up. that’s not how people see you.

So get that phone slightly above your eye level when you are taking the picture. Next, I want you to look at the camera lens when you snap the shot. I mean, first of all, take a look at your image first. Make sure you’re lined up, make sure you’re in frame and it’s not like, you’re only getting your left ear obviously.

But before you click that button, I want you to look right into the camera lens, and on most phones, it’s somewhere on the top. If it’s an iPhone, I’m looking at my iPhone, the camera lens, well it depends which iPhone you have, so you got to figure that out, where your camera lens is.

On mine, I have an iPhone 11 and it is just to the right of center. But you want to be looking, when you snap the photo, you want to be looking directly at that camera lens because that means when somebody is looking at the photo, it looks like you’re making eye contact with them. You’re looking into the camera confidently.

If you’re looking at your image when you take the photo, if you’re looking at your image, your eyes won’t be lined up straight with the camera. They’ll be looking down a little bit and it just looks slightly bit off. So you want to look right at the camera lens before you take the picture, and this gives that illusion that you’re making eye contact with the person who will eventually see the picture.

So don’t look at your own image when you’re taking the shot. Look at the camera lens. And here’s the thing; I want you to take a few practice shots each way. Take some where you’re looking directly in the camera lens and take some where you’re looking literally just a couple inches below at your image and notice the difference.

Notice how it just looks that tiny bit off when you’re not looking into the lens. So you can practice. And here’s the beauty of taking a selfie on a phone. You can take as many practice shots as you want and then delete the ones that you don’t like. That is the beauty of the smartphone. It’s amazing, right?

Okay, and then the final tip I have for you is to smile. Smile. Just put an expression on your face. I see – the most common thing is I see a lot of pics that are taken from below chin level with this sort of confused expression because in your mind you’re thinking, “How the heck do I take a selfie?” And it shows.

You’re looking at the camera going huh? So I want you – you’re going to bring the camera up, you’re going to look into the lens, and you are going to smile. Smile for the camera. Or if you don’t feel comfortable smiling, put another expression on your face.

Sometimes I like to stick my tongue out, or I like to do an eye-roll, or I like to make it look like I’m laughing, which is not very hard for me because I’m laughing a lot. You can make funny faces, whatever you choose, put an expression on your face. Not just sort of a blank what the hell am I doing here.

Show the emotion that you’re feeling in the moment. It may take a little bit of acting. You may feel kind of weird smiling for the camera or goofing for the camera, but here’s the thing; you don’t have to do that the first time you take a selfie, not even a post-run selfie.

I recommend take your camera into your bedroom, shut the door so nobody can see you, and then play around and do all the funny, silly things that you want to do. Practice all the expressions, practice all the angles and figure out the one that you like best. And then you can use that when you are taking selfies outside after you’re done with your run.

And I actually said something in the Roadmap group this morning, the Rebel Runner Roadmap. I said, hey you guys, I know a few of you have been asking about selfies, I’m going to do a tutorial. I’ll do a video tutorial for that, would you like it? And so many people said yes, how do I make myself not look red, hot, and sweaty after a run?

I’m like, well, that’s actually the beauty of the post-run selfie. You’re supposed to look red and sweaty and hot. It’s not a glamor shot. It’s a post-run selfie and you’ve just finished running. So don’t worry so much about like, oh, I look terrible, my face is all red. Of course, it’s all red. You just finished running. That’s part of the fun of the post-run selfie.

Alright, so let’s just review it really quick. Number one, camera slightly above eye level. Maybe forehead level. Two, look at the camera lens when you’re taking the picture. And three, put a smile or another expression on your face to show your emotion. That’s it. It really is simple to take an awesome post-run selfie.

And again, take a lot of them to practice. Delete the ones you don’t like, but the more you take, the better you’ll get, and the more comfortable you’ll get. Those people that you see that take these amazing pictures, they are not naturally gifted. They’ve just practiced a million different poses and angles and facial expressions and they know what works. That is all. You can do this. I believe in you.

Alright, it is time to get serious now because some of y’all are worried about what is going to happen to your running routine when you go back to in-person work. Because whether you’ve been completely off work, maybe you’ve been laid off temporarily or maybe you’ve been working from home, what that means is you don’t have a commute right now.

So you can get up a little bit later, maybe a lot later. Maybe you roll out of bed five minutes before your first Zoom meeting of the day, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth. You don’t have to do your hair or your makeup or whatever, right?

So for most of you, I’m guesstimating here, that is at least an extra hour in the morning, probably more like two extra hours in the morning, and probably another 30 minutes at night, depending on how far you have to drive. So we’re talking probably about two hours in your day that now you’re like, oh shit, how am I going to find a way to fit running in when I’m losing that two hours?

So the first thing I have to say about this is how important is it for you to keep up your running routine? Because you know what, we make the important stuff happen. We really do. We find time for what we prioritize, and that means if you prioritize running, it’s going to happen.

You don’t wake up every morning thinking, “Hmm, how am I going to fit in work today? I hope I can fit work into my schedule this week.” No, you know it’s something you’re going to do because you prioritize all the things that are required to get yourself from your bed to your work station.

So the difference between running and work is your thinking. So with work, you have thoughts like, “I have to go to work.” And when you think that thought, your feeling is certainty. And when you feel certain, your action is to get up, get in the shower, get dressed, go to work.

You don’t wonder, you don’t worry about it. You just fucking do it because your thought, “I have to go to work,” drives the feeling of certainty, which leads to the action of going to fucking work, right? So you can apply this to running. It’s the same damn thing.

If your thought is, “I’m going to run today no matter what,” you feel certain. Maybe even determined. And then your action is to figure out how to make it happen and then go to it. So right now, your thoughts are, “Oh no, I hope I can keep running in my life when I go back to work.”

So how do you think you feel when you think that thought, when you think to yourself, “I hope I can keep running in my life when I go back to work.” You feel uncertain. Uncertain is the polar opposite of certain. So if certainty drives the action of running, guess what uncertainty drives. The action of not running. The action of wondering and worrying.

So many, many of my clients have been asking for tips and tricks on how to reorganize their schedule so they can still run when work restarts. And I am going to share those with you in a moment, I promise, but it all starts with your mind.

Because if your mind is uncertain, there are no tips and tricks that are going to help you in the long run. You have to decide. Decide you’re going to figure it out, that you might make some mistakes along the way. That’s okay. But one way or another, you’re not going to give up your running routine just because you have to get up earlier now.

Because living in that feeling of uncertainty is so powerless. It’s so powerless. I want you to take control of the situation. Stop wondering about how you’re going to do it. Stop worrying about it. Wondering is the opposite of action. Worrying is the opposite of action. They keep you stuck. They keep you waiting for the solution to magically appear. They keep you looking for tips and tricks instead of saying I’m just going to figure this shit out.

So before you start planning anything out with your new schedule, get your mind right, my friends. Get it right. Don’t think, “I hope I can figure this out.” That is not a helpful thought. That is not empowering. You want to know that you will figure it out.

You might not know right this second exactly what your new schedule is going to look like, but you know for damn sure that you can and will figure it out. Got it? Okay, so get your mind right first, create that emotion of certainty that’s going to drive the action of figuring it out so that your running schedule continues.

Alright, let’s talk about some scheduling ideas though. So once you’ve got your mind right, now you’re like, oh shit, now I got to figure this out. There’s two main ideas I have for you here. The first one is you know you’re going to be commuting to work soon. Maybe it’s next week, maybe it’s three weeks from now. Whenever your state and your employer get it figured out, you got to start living that life right now.

Start getting out of bed at the appropriate time right now. I know, you’re like, “But I don’t have to.” That’s okay. You’re practicing now when it’s not like, as big of a consequence. You’re practicing right now what you’re going to be doing in a few weeks. So start getting up early right now and doing your run at the time you’re going to need to do it in the future.

So if right now you’re getting up at 7am, maybe you get up at seven and you start work at 7:30, and in the future, you’re going to need to get up at six o clock so that you can do your run and then get your shower. I know these probably aren’t your exact numbers, but if you’re going to have to get up at six o clock, if you’re going to have to get up an hour earlier in a few weeks so that you can run and shower and drive to work, start getting up now at that time.

Go for your run, even though you don’t need to go for your run that early now, you’re practicing your future routine. You’re practicing it. That’s what you’re doing. So it’s not like, oh, I don’t need to do it right now. Yeah actually, you kind of do because you want to practice it so that it goes really smoothly on your first day of work.

So start getting up early now, doing your run at the time you’re going to need to do it in the future. Take the shower and all that stuff. And then maybe then you’re going to have an extra hour before you really do need to start work for the day or whatever it is.

And right now, you maybe use that time for extra projects, maybe it’s just to read a book, catch up on your Netflix shows, whatever you want to do with it. That’s totally fine. But get the monuments of your daily schedule, the running and the showering, the things that are non-negotiable, get those done at the time you’re going to be doing them in the future.

You’re going to start creating that space now. So I don’t want you to keep sleeping in just because you can because what you’re doing is practicing your old schedule. And we are transitioning to a new schedule so you got to start practicing the new ones. Get used to an earlier start now. Start living in the future version of you today because it’s going to make the transition in the future so much easier.

So that’s number one. And then number two, let’s really take a look at what you’re doing all day. This is not the fun part. And figure out what needs to stay and what maybe needs to take a backseat. So I want you to actually keep a time log of everything you do in your day right now.

Like, a detailed log. You spend five minutes scrolling Facebook, I want you to write it down. Seven minutes putting on your makeup, write it down. 20 minutes lying in bed after the alarm goes off, write it down. Do this for a week. Categorize everything that you’ve done.

And I want you to do three categories. The first is non-negotiable, the second is nice to have, and the third is completely unnecessary. So non-negotiable are things like work, running, journaling, showering, laundry, eating lunch, spending time with your family and friends, sexy time with your partner, playing with your pet.

These are all things that add to your quality of life and wellbeing in some way. They’re very important to you, they’re non-negotiable. We will get those in the schedule.

The next category that you’re going to put things in when you’re assessing your log for the past week is nice to haves. Things like stopping at the mall on your way home from work, watching Netflix, fun stuff that you like to do that maybe enhances your life, but is it really necessary for you to thrive?

We all know if we didn’t have Netflix, we would not die. We actually – our lives might get a little bit better. Although I’ll die on the mountain of the Tiger King because that really was fun to watch. But really, these are nice to haves. They’re fun things that you like to do. Maybe you do them with other people and they do enhance your life, but they’re really not necessary for you to thrive.

And then the third category is completely unnecessary stuff, like when you lose a half an hour just randomly scrolling through your Facebook feed. And we all know what this is like. We come back from a run, grab a glass of water, maybe stretch a little bit. We sit down on the couch. We’re like, I’m just going to cool down for a minute before I take my shower.

Pull out your phone, and you’re scrolling for half an hour, and then you’re like, oh shit, now I’m late for work. Those are the kinds of things that are completely unnecessary. Anything you do to avoid doing something else, like your buffers. The buffers that you use to aid yourself in procrastination, those things are completely unnecessary.

Unnecessary things are the things that if you didn’t do them, your quality of life not only wouldn’t decrease, it would probably go up. When you eliminate unnecessary stuff, your life gets better. Those are the things that I want you to kind of categorize as completely unnecessary.

Now, add all the time up each day, all the minutes that you spend doing each thing. And by the way, sleep is a non-negotiable. So you can add up your sleep minutes too if you want to. But add up the amount of time you spend each day on each individual category.

So you’re going to have how much time you’re spending on non-negotiables, the total amount of time for that, the total amount of time that you have for nice to haves, and the total amount of time for unnecessary stuff. And I want you to look at that third number, how much time are you really spending on completely unnecessary stuff.

And I bet it is at least 45 minutes a day when you add it all up, and it’s probably more like an hour or two. So girl, you have the time to run. It is there. The data is going to show this to you. So when you schedule your day, you start out with the things in the first category.

You plan out all your non-negotiables. When are you going to run? When are you going to drive to work? When are you going to shower? When are you going to spend time with your family and friends? When are you going to journal?

Those things that are non-negotiable, you’re going to put them in your scheduled first. And if reading a book is non-negotiable for you, then boom, you’re going to schedule the time that you’re going to sit down and read your book. Those are the non-negotiables.

The next thing, you’re going to look at how much time you have left. If you don’t have any time left, alright then, done. We’re done and over. You probably do have a little bit of time left, and that’s when you put in all of the nice to have things.

So maybe it’s that hour every night that you’re like, this is when I’m going to watch Netflix, or I’m going to schedule 20 minutes right after dinner to go through Facebook and catch up with everything that my friends are doing or catch up on my groups.

If you’re one of my clients, maybe that’s when you go into our Facebook group and actually comment on other people’s posts and stuff. But you guys, if you’re going to schedule time to do Facebook, which I highly recommend that you do, schedule time for Facebook, schedule time for Instagram, set a timer.

Don’t just say okay, 15 minutes is what I’m giving myself and then expect that you’re just going to know when 15 minutes is up. You’ve got to set a timer for that or it’s going to be an hour later and you’re going to be like, motherfucker, I just lost my reading time.

So I want you to really schedule your day and then what’s going to happen is your brain is going to say, “But I don’t want to go for a run now.” And then you have that conversation with yourself because it’s going to be non-negotiable. It’s something you put in your schedule. You follow your schedule. You do the things that you said you were going to do.

You’re going to have to make some choices. But I want you to start asking yourself, what’s more important to me right now? Getting my 45-minute run in or using that 45 minutes to watch TikTok dance videos? Really ask yourself that question.

Because that’s what you’re doing when you have scheduled yourself to run and instead, you’re lying in bed on TikTok, you’re legit saying TikTok is more important to me than running. And I know that’s not actually the case.

So I want you to start creating some awareness of where you are spending your time. Put running on the non-negotiable list. Not the nice to have list, and make sure that it gets done and drop off some of the unnecessary stuff. Because I promise, you’re really not going to miss it.

That’s how you create a new routine to fit your schedule for when you go back to work. You start with what’s important and then you fit in what is left and then you adhere to your schedule, and you coach yourself when your brain argues and says it doesn’t want to do what’s on the schedule.

Alright, that is it for this week, my friends. I love you. Stay safe, get your ass out there and run and I will see you in the next episode.

Oh, and one last thing. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, you have to check out the Rebel Runner Roadmap. It’s a 30-day online program that will teach you exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you’ve always wanted to be. Head on over to rebelrunnerroadmap.com to join. I’d love to be a part of your journey.