When I signed up for the NYC marathon, I didn’t just sign up to finish but to see what I was capable of. I set a goal to run my first marathon in under 3 hours, something less than .02% of NYC marathon runners accomplish this (2018: 1,203 out of 52,813). This is my first marathon, so I am embracing every behavioral science strategy and tactic to make my goal possible…
What am I doing? Will I hit my goal? Let’s find out…
1. Build a Routine around Running More Often
“The key to improving running is simple — run more”, says John Henwood, 2004 Olympian and my running coach. You don’t need fancy shoes, special supplements, magic gels, or a sophisticated running watches. Speed, technique, form, and pacing are byproducts of simply showing up and running. It almost sounds too good to be true, but running more often is the single best way to improve your running.
2. Find the Immediate Reward with Running
Running more often is hard when you hate running. The mere thought of running a mile used to haunt me, let alone running 26 miles. Before building up my weekly mileage I had to change this negative association of running in my mind. To do this, I had to find the positive, immediate rewards with running….
- Immediate rewards for me: Running is energizing (fresh start to my day), challenges me (hitting my daily distances), and provides mental clarity (running outside helps me think clearly).
- Distant future rewards: Running will help me live longer, improve my health, will improve my running performance.
3. Remove Barriers to Running
What are the barriers to running? What distractions loom preventing me from putting on the shoes and running? Work getting in the way, kids consuming time, phone distractions, tired, no motivation? For me, one of my main barriers was a black device worn on my wrist — my Garmin watch. For some people, looking at their watch and tracking every step, pace, turn and heartbeat enables performance or consistency. However, for me, looking at my watch disrupts my focus and deflates my motivation. By avoiding looking at my watch, I enjoy runs more, stay motivated, run faster and most importantly stay persistent.
4. Context. It matters.
For months I trained by running the Westside Highway along the Hudson River in NYC. It’s flat, straight, and hard surface making runs easy and fast. Plus it’s right next to where I live. Although my pace was fast, when I went to run in Central Park I had a rude awakening! I went from super flat, straight and fast to Central park, which is a mix of dirt trails, road running, hills with steep elevation and covered by trees. Training in the Central Park context, which more closely represents race difficulty, better prepares me to hit my goal time.
5. Create Running Reference Points
Running sounds as ‘solo’ as sport but thats far from the truth. I completely underestimated the power of a team when training for a marathon. Who you run with and how your coach pairs up runners will largely determine you running performance. I run with people better than me, which challenges me, motivates me, and ultimately makes me run faster.
So is the behavioral science helping?
I am just under 12 weeks out from running the NYC marathon and have significantly improved my running performance — increased milage (60 miles/week), reduced my pace (7:05/18 miles) and most importantly, my mind and body never felt better! There is still a lot more work to get under 3 hours goal for 26 miles but I remain optimistic. Hopefully a planning fallacy or optimism bias wont get the best of me!
