Saw this pop up, and I was like, “I can do better than The Times. The Times? Please.”
I said some other stuff, too, but it’s embarrassing stuff I muttered to myself as I walked around and thought, for the 5th time today, that I really should vacuum.
First, let’s talk about this:
About six million adults run regularly, according to Sport England’s Active Lives Survey. Yet along with the euphoric and fat-burning effects of the activity comes the risk of persistent niggles and injuries
Do we need the word “niggles?” I feel like most words that start “nigg-” can probably be replaced by something else, right? We can just say, “persistent little shitty things.”
And with that accusation of racism, I’ve discredited The Times, and now we can get down to business.
Here are some tips from around the web.
From Self: Take time to walk during long runs.
Uh, how is it a “running” tip to walk? That’s like saying a tip for nervous flyers is to drive instead. “How do I learn to love cats? Oh, just say fuck it and get a dog? Cool.”
My number one running tip is that if you’re walking, you’re not running, so convert all your walking into running. It’s awkward indoors and in the card aisle at Target, but hey, do you want to be a runner or a polite, normal human?
From New York Times: Thank you for visiting nytimes.com. We hope you enjoyed your 10 free articles this month.
Damn it.
From Shape: Be kind to yourself.
Are you kidding? Being kind to myself is what got me into this mess in the first place. Doing myself the kindness of not going for a run when it’s windy? That’s what got me where I am today. No, I think it’s time for some game-changing self-cruelty.
Be cruel to yourself. I don’t know, maybe it’ll work? Have you tried? I know a lot of us are cruel to ourselves naturally, but have you ever really leaned in? Have you ever asked yourself if you’re being as cruel as you could be?
From The Guardian: Other exercises are important
So you’re telling me that once I start running, I have to do OTHER exercises to accommodate the running? Does this not seem stupid to anyone else? I have to do exercises in order to do exercise? Couldn’t I just do the exercises that make it possible to run and skip the running?
Nobody does this with weightlifting. They’re not like, “Make sure you’re also rollerskating.”
From Stylist (and everywhere): WEAR THE RIGHT TRAINERS
Everybody is acting like, “Wear shoes that don’t have spikes inside them, jabbing into your feet” is a reasonable piece of advice.
I’ve run 7 months with my shoes, and one of them definitely has a pebble in it that I just don’t care enough to shake out, the other had a live spider inside that was biting me constantly (it’s probably still in there, but I’m fairly sure it died after my foot swole up from all the venom and smashed the spider. An ironic death, really).
I went through all that, and I’m fine. It’s called being tough, and if you want to be tough, get the wrong shoes, and run in them until they burst. Show those shoes you’re tougher than they are, and you’ll be running long after they’re in the dump.
From Lifehack: Lastly, have fun.
Oh, gee, never thought of it that way. I was having a miserable time, but if I had fun doing the miserable time stuff, it’d be a whole new world!
I’m going to apply this to everything.
Hate work? Have you thought about having fun?
Hate family gatherings? What if instead of being bored, you had fun?
Damn, this really is a life hack.