Since I finished my last sports test in school in 2010 I never went running again. I tried it from time to time, but it was no fun for me. I always ran to fast and wanted to stop after a few minutes. It felt exhausting and boring to me and I just hated it.

„I just hated it.“

Until the end of last year. I was so stressed and my life felt a bit chaotic. As everyone says running in the morning is such a great activity to start a busy day and relax your mind I wanted to give it another chance. And this time I slowly fell in love with it.

And again…

As I didn´t want to give it up again and didn´t do it for a weight loss purpose but for my mind, I decided to keep it easy. After getting up I took my mobile phone with me to the forest and set a timer of only three minutes. Once the clock rang, I stopped stretched out a bit and then ran back.

Six minutes was really not a lot, it felt easy to me and I felt good afterwards. So I started to increase the time slowly, minute by minute and started to run without the break in the middle. I only changed the duration as soon as I didn´t feel too exhausted in the end of the run. So I knew it was no problem to run just a minute longer.

This method worked for me, I never fell unmotivated and it never felt too hard, because the steps were so small that I managed each run easily. It became a morning routine of me to do a 15min run and I always felt much fresher after the run.

„This method worked for me, I never felt unmotivated and it never felt too hard.“

Find out what motivates you

What also can help you to enjoy it more can be good powerful and fun music. I have a playlist on Spotify for running. Sometimes I take my dogs with me, which I enjoy also a lot. It can be difficult at the beginning because you maybe can´t run at the same speed all the time, but I love to watch them running with me. I also love to run very early, so it´s very calm outside and the sun is just raising, believe me, it feels amazing.

Progress

After a long break due to an injury it was hard to get back to my habit of running in the morning. But once I decided to live more healthy and get in shape I got back to it. I mostly ran about 20 min until I took my boyfriend and dogs with me for a run and we didn´t stop for 30min without noticing. Since then I always run 30min and it feels better and better each time. In the beginning the first few minutes always felt hard and I had to force myself to keep going. But today I can enjoy every minute. I run 1-2 times a week only and mix it with other cardio training, but I still feel that it gets easier.

Equipment

If you run a lot you also might want to get good equipment. When I worked on increasing my duration, I always used a pulse watch to control my heart rate and to make sure I wouldn´t run too fast. This helped me a lot to find a good speed. Also I got better shoes once I ran 30min, because my old once caused me ankle pain. With the new shoes all the pain was gone right away.

So get your running shoes out and enjoy the nature and fresh morning air! Don´t think about how long  or fast you should run, do it the way you can enjoy it and it feels good for you 🙂