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This is more of a brainstorm than anything else.  They’ve been in my head for years, but for some reason I felt compelled to lay them down today.  Enjoy….

#1:  Warm up.  Warm up, warm up, warm up.  Need I say it again?  Warm up.  If you don’t, you risk injury, cramps, and/or severe soreness later on.  If you don’t have time to warm up, you don’t have time to run.  Some people like to start with a brisk walk.  I jog until I break a sweat (usually about half a mile).  Then I stop and stretch, and you should too.  Skipping the stretching is asking for trouble.

#2:  In case of health / safety-related concerns, STOP.  There is something to be said for running through pain (if you didn’t, what kind of runner would you be???), but if you suspect that you really have injured yourself or are experiencing some legitimate health problem, do not—repeat, do not—attempt to run through it.  Stop and figure out what’s wrong.  The same thing goes for the health & safety of others—it’s okay to stop and help someone who is hurt or ill.  This also covers things like severe weather, natural disasters, shoes coming untied, and losing feeling in your feet.

#3:  Keep running no matter what (except in case of #2).  The special circumstances described in Rule #2 aside, you must never, never stop running in the middle of a workout, no matter how hard it gets or how tired you feel.  If you do it once, it will be that much easier to justify it the next time running gets hard.  Slow down if you have to, but do not stop.
 
#4:  Be straightforward with yourself about the workout.  Don’t pull surprises on your body—it hates that.  Stick to the plan.  If it’s a training day, train.  If it’s a race day, race.  If it’s a recovery day, recover.  Running is enough of a mind game as it is.  On that same note….
 
#5:  Can the Machismo.  Don’t ever decide to go longer / harder / faster than you planned just because you feel strong.  If you said you’re running five miles, run five—not seven.  No matter how tempting it is.
 
#6:  Can the Weakness.  The flip side of #4 is that if you planned to run five miles, you run five miles, not three.  Even if you have to slow down.  Again, anything you’ve done once is way too easy to do a second time.
 
#7:  Push yourself.  It’s fine to slow down in order to finish your distance, but be sure that you really do need to slow down.  Sure, running slower is easier, but you don’t always need to run slower just because you’d like to.  Be honest with yourself about this.
 
#8:  Recognize adversity & adjust appropriately.  On the other hand, if you need to slow down to make sure you finish the distance without killing yourself, do it.  If you’re out of it or the weather is bad, don’t feel obligated to plow through the usual.  Aim for finishing your distance if at all possible, even if you have to slow the pace way down.
 
#9:  Run the last mile hard.  I like to do this just because I can, and because it feels good.  Some people also say that running semi-hard toward the end of a run or immediately after helps flush the toxins out of your muscles.  It also makes that last mile go by faster.  :)
 
#10:  Cool down.  It can be tempting to run back to your front door and collapse on the couch.  Resist!  Cooling down is just as important as warming up.  When you finish running, spend several minutes walking, ideally until your breathing and heart rate return to normal and you’re no longer sweating (I usually walk about half a mile).  If you don’t cool down, blood pools in your legs, leaving you vulnerable to cramps and soreness later on.  It’s also important to stretch after you run.  Consistently foregoing the post-run stretch leads to decreased flexibility over time.

#11:  Refuel within 15 minutes, even if that means a Clif Bar in the car, which for me it usually does since I tend to run away from home.  For the first 15 minutes after your run, your muscles are primed to grab up and store as glycogen (muscle food) any carbs you feed it.  After 15 minutes, this phenomenon starts to diminish, and your body reverts to storing energy from food the way it normally would
 
#12:  Listen to your body.  Yes, it’s lame to find excuses not to run when the real reason is that you plain don’t feel like it, but there are also legitimate reasons.  If your legs hurt because you ran hard yesterday and you’ve scheduled another for today, don’t do it.  Rest.  Or cross-train.  Or at the very least, take a very easy, short run.  Ignoring what your body is telling you about its condition can result in more lost time in the form of injuries or burnout than skipping a workout or two.

 So yeah–there you have it!

In high school, I was a total music nerd — I did concert choir, show choir, and church choir, played in two musicals, taught myself guitar, took two years of music theory, participated in any number of choral, esemble, and solo competitions in both voice and piano, coached younger students in voice, and, in my later years, I started writing music.

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