-
Maintaining focus and motivation during the summer is challenging but possible with good organization.
-
Tips: set the alarm clock far away, pack a change, plan breakfast, and overcome resistance.
-
Run early in the morning, plan and take advantage of the summer coolness to be able to keep your workout consistent.
Maintaining consistent focus and motivation during the summer is not an easy thing to do. It is not during times of the year when the weather is more easily manageable, let alone when summer seems to try to remind us every day that we have physical limitations. It is a kind of talking cricket, from this point of view, the hot season, a kind of conscience that makes us weigh our energies better and think more carefully about what to do. It is also a good time to take small breaks and skip a run or two now and then, which is not like the world is falling apart. If, however, we want to keep running even when it seems that it’s really too hot or we want to do it when we are on vacation but without taking time away from wandering around, it might be a solution to arrange to run early in the morning, trying to plan our runs in advance so that we don’t find them boring and keep us wanting to wake up a little earlier than usual.
Here are a few tips to help you get more organized:
Put the alarm clock (or smartphone) away from the bed
It’s a bit like the classic trick of mom doing the vacuum cleaning in the next room when we were child, forcing us to open our eyes, in order to wake us up early even on weekends. In this case, the vacuum cleaner is the alarm clock that goes off and-if we do not want to upset the whole neighborhood-compels us to get up and turn it off. And now that we’re up, we might as well stay up and get ready to run, partly because we’ve been prescient and have…
Set your running apparel in advance
Again, this is a ruse that tricks the mind a bit. Your stuff is already there, ready on the chair right next to the alarm clock, waiting for you and looking forward to being put on. It’s early in the morning but it’s full summer and you don’t even need to put on several layers, because it will already be twenty degrees outside at worst. So don’t overthink it, put on shorts, tank top and shoes and now that the chair is free you can sit on it because…
Prepare your breakfast the night before
You have left on the table almost everything you need for breakfast, just missing the coffee (or milk, or tea) and cookies (or rusks, or croissant) to allow you to get properly activated. Nothing too heavy, but don’t forget to drink at least one glass of water before leaving the house.
You’re ready to leave the house, take the first step and think that maybe it would have been better to stay in bed, get to the fifth minute mulling over the fact that it’s already very hot and maybe you should have drank a little more (I told you, to drink!), get through the fifteenth minute saying that it’s not going so bad after all, and at the end of your run think that yes, you did really well to organize yourself this way.
(Main image credits: Maridav on DepositPhotos.com)