Keeping Myself Honest

Ever since I graduated from high school (and thus graduated from my high school soccer and dance teams and the regular workouts that were built in), I've been trying to stick to a workout routine. And with all my starts ... there have been stops. I get bored. Something comes up.

This time around, I'm being very open about it. I'm blogging about it, posting it to Facebook, talking about it to my friends. Why? Not because I love bragging to everyone, or because I'm proud of my slow running pace. Because I'm hoping it will keep me honest.

I hate quitting. OK, I hate admitting that I've quit something. So, my hope is by blabbing about running all the time, it will help me stick with it. Also, by blabbing about my goals (especially when they involve races), I will follow through, because I don't want to tell the world I'm going to do something and not do it. I might be indecisive, but I don't like being a failure.

I found a neat app on Facebook - Brooks Running Club. Yes, it's clearly a marketing ploy by Brooks (I work in marketing, I should know!), but it's very useful for two reasons: 1) It's an easy way to track my runs and 2) It helps me build my own online running community. I can talk about running with my few friends that I know are (or are trying to be) runners, but this easily connects me to my Facebook friends (who use the app), no matter where they are or how often I talk to them, and it also connects me to other runners who aren't my friends. Also, the app publishes my runs to my profile, so all of my friends (that haven't hidden me or the app) can see when I've run ... and when I haven't.

I've also been checking out The Loop - RunnersWorld.com's online community - to connect with other runners and also to blog about running (in more detail than I do here).

So hopefully by "keeping myself honest" I'll actually keep with this fitness routine. It's been 5 months and I'm still running. All I have to do is keeping picking races to train for. The next big one is a Pikermi in September.