Running Every Day For a Month: Capra 30×30

So many of my beliefs about what I am capable of have to do with my perspective and what I have been exposed to. When I was in high school and we had to do the 12-min-run test for PE that felt like an eternity, and reason to rest for a month afterwards. For years I ran for 25 mins because I thought that was a lot. I didn’t know anyone else that even ran willingly for 1 min at that point in my life. Then I started pushing myself to run for an hour plus, and every time I went more than about 1:15 my knees hurt. Therefore, it became my belief that my body wasn’t capable of running any more than an hour. I have limiting beliefs and you most likely do as well.

In recent years, I have run some pretty big mileage (of course, from my experience and perspective!) but I still thought that my body needed to rest after 3 back-to-back days of running. I kept trying to motivate myself to at least go outside and go for a walk on these pre-winter, non-running days, just to get some fresh air. But walking…..meh. I would much rather run.

I saw the Capra 30×30 challenge come up in my Instagram feed and knew right away that I wanted to do it. 30 mins for 30 days didn’t sound that hard because I always run longer than that anyway. The time commitment felt do-able and I didn’t feel like my body would suffer too much and more than all of that I needed a reason to push myself in November. It is my least favourite month in the whole year…lots of dreary days, coupled with diminishing daylight. Lots of rain, some snow but not enough to be consistently useful for winter sports and it just feels like a recipe to be depressed. I mourn the passing of warm summer days and November feels like the reality check that I don’t want to face. Running every day? Sounds good to me! And I also decided to add a photography challenge to kick me out of a photo rut as well!

My take-away is that though I have been running for nearly 23 years there is still new perspectives and experiences to explore. I don’t know everything that my body and mind are capable of. I held the belief that I need to rest and cross-train but interestingly enough my body felt better after 35 days of running (I did a few more!) than it did before.

Let’s not limit ourselves to the things we *think* are true but are usually things where we can change our minds and habits. They become our reasons but are most often just excuses!