Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone and Signing Up For (And Training For!) Your First Race

By Dan Chabert

If you’ve been exercising regularly for a long time, getting in your daily sweat session might be as automatic to you as simply brushing your teeth (or any other self-care task). Over time, though, you might become bored with your usual routine. Similarly, if you’re new to exercise, you may feel like you don’t know where you should start or that there’s nothing out there that you’d enjoy or want to continue doing for a long time, enough to help you realize your long-term or short-term goals.

Allow me to solve all your problems and make a simple suggestion: register, and train, for your first race.

Some self-disclosure, first: I’ve been a runner for most of my life and for basically all of my adult life. I’ve been racing marathons and long-distance stuff since 2007. I’m coming into this post fairly biased, but I’m convinced that out of all the activities out there one can do, running is one of the most egalitarian and one of the most accessible. It doesn’t require hardly any equipment, so to speak, and as long as you have a safe place to do it, and the will or interest to keep at it over time, even when the going gets tough, you’ll be all set.

One of the many nice things about running is that there’s a style and flavor out there for everyone. You can do the long stuff, like half marathons, marathons, or even ultramarathons, or you can do shorter stuff, like 10 milers, 10ks, 8ks, 5ks, 1 milers, or anything on the track. If you want to run up and down mountains like in The Sound of Music, go for it, or if simply running around your community center indoor track is more appealing or accessible to you, that’s completely fine, too. There’s literally something for everyone, so it’s just a matter of finding a distance that is attractive to you and is one that you can reasonably train for.

If you’re finding that you’re in need of some motivation in your workout routine, having a race on the calendar can be just the ticket. Below, I’ll explain in more detail why doing your first race in 2017 will be one of your best ideas yet:

Having a race on the calendar is good for motivation. Having a race on the calendar will help bring some focus to your daily exercise sessions and can help motivate you to target your training accordingly. I know plenty of runners who prefer to just run year-round, without the “carrot” of having a race on the calendar to work toward, but I also know many other runners who need to have the “stick” in front of them to get them out of bed each morning and post their workouts as prescribed. If you’ve been running for a long time, having a race on the calendar can help shake-out the doldrums of doing the same ol’, same ol’, too, because it can force you to exercise in new and different (if not more challenging!) ways.

Training for a race can make you mentally tough. Racing is tough work, no doubt about it. In the throes of a race, you’ll probably wonder if you can do it, if you are capable of realizing your goals, and no doubt, you are! You can! It’ll be in all the training moments that you’ll be able to cultivate “mental toughness” that you’ll be able to draw from in the thick of race day, and certainly, when you realize how much tougher you are than you initially realize, you’ll be able to transfer this mental toughness and tenacity to other areas of your non-running life.

Having a race on the calendar can help keep you accountable. Spending the money for a race, and getting it on the calendar, can be enough of a motivator to get yourself out of bed each morning to go run, even if you’re tired, the weather is inclement, you don’t feel like it, or (insert excuse here). Most races don’t refund their registration costs, so if you don’t do the race, you’re basically throwing your money away — probably something that you don’t want to do.

Racing is a ton of fun — seriously! For as tough as racing is, it’s also incredibly fun. Probably few other times in your adult life can you pin a number on your shirt and go run your little heart out, trying to cover a distance as fast as you possibly can. Children run with unbridled joy, whereas a lot of adults tend to get into their own heads and freak themselves out about the distance, their expectations, their goals, or the like. Run like a child! Enjoy the feeling of running with purpose and with joy, and in training, appreciate the journey that you get to take and all the places you get to go (both literally and figuratively) by virtue of training and of teaching your body to do something that it never has before. As adults, we are so infrequently afforded these types of opportunities, so don’t take it lightly. Treasure the privilege and joy that is running, and enjoy every step of the way — even when it’s really tough (and it will be, without a doubt).

2017 is still young, and there’s still plenty of time to figure out what type of race you’d like to run and train for in the coming months. There really is something out there for everyone, so take the time to research what’s nearest you, talk to other runners and get their recommendations, and evaluate your life’s current and future commitments so you have a sense of your free time and how much time you can devote to training. You’ll be surprised at how much fun you can have, and if I were a betting person, I’d bet that once you do your first race, you’ll be itchin’ for more.

See you out there!