When it comes to working out, I think most of us are trained to work out for a specific amount of time. Thirty minutes is the gold standard; 45 minutes is something special. Sixty minutes is heading into “OMG” territory. You usually need some kind of distraction–like “The Bachelorette” perhaps?–to get through that many minutes of cardio.
But sometimes I feel like my body could use a longer session. It’s good to build endurance and burn extra calories, when, say, you’re drinking three glasses of wine every night at dinner (not that I ever go through those phases). I generally have a major mental block when it comes to long workouts, but I’ve found I don’t even think about the clock when I set a distance goal instead of a time goal.
This became apparent to me when I started training for the half marathon. I’d never say, “I think I’ll go run for 45 minutes straight.” OK I might, but it would take all my willpower to do it. I’d definitely never say, “Oh, you know, today I have 77 minutes to devote to nothing but running.” But I can say, “Oh, my training schedule calls for eight miles today, so I better go do that.”
Time just doesn’t matter when you’re running for a distance. It might, however, encourage you to move faster–because the faster you can hit your goal, the faster you’ll be done!
It’s particularly nice to do this outside and map your route in a loop so you only have to run, say, a mile and a half, before you turn around and are running back. It makes it go much faster this way; running toward home is always a great feeling. And remember you can use Google to find out how far your outdoor route is.
Cover up the time on your machine or don’t wear a watch, and just keep your eye on the prize. You don’t have to be a runner to do this either–walking works, biking covers a lot of miles, and even elliptical machines have a distance feature.
Sometimes a small adjustment like this takes the work out of working out. Sharing your time can make you seem like a boring gym rat. “Thirty minutes” doesn’t tell people much, and “seventy-five minutes” might tell people, “I can’t get laid.” But for some reason, bragging about your distance is honestly impressive, empowering, and can keep you going!
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