The Santa Shuffle — Chicago, IL

If hundreds of runners in Santa suits don’t motivate you, then I don’t know what will!

When you’re running a family, it’s hard to find time to run. And it’s easy to make excuses not to.

“I have an early meeting, so I can’t run in the morning.“
“I don’t know what people at work will think, so I can’t run at lunch.“
“I’m too tired, so I can’t run in the evening.”

Finding or forming a group (like the “Lunch Ladies”) is a great way to keep yourself from falling prey to your excuses. If you know other people are expecting you to be there, you’ll be less likely to wimp out. (if you didn’t click the Rachel Ray Show link earlier to watch the video, now would be a good time)

And even if you don’t run with a group, you can use friends and family to keep you on track. Tell them your fitness goals. Tell them how often you want to work out. And then ask them to check in on you and keep you honest. Of course, if they’re good friends, they would never make you feel bad for missing a run here and there. After all, running should be a way to improve fitness and relieve stress — not add to your already high stress level. But just knowing that they know you want to run, and that they support your fitness goals, will make you run more and run better.

Finding a wacky race is also a great way to shake it up and add some fun to your routine! There are lots of great local races like the Santa Shuffle all over the place. All you have to do is find them, and then sign up! Sometimes they can be tricky to find, so if you know of one go ahead and post it in the comments!

Then take your family along with you, and have a great time together!

I was talking to two single friends at work who were comparing notes with each other on their P90X fitness plan. They were going on and on about how much of their time it takes up, how much grocery shopping they need to do to prepare the prescribed menus, and how complicated the workouts are with pushups (many variations), pullups (many more variations), kenpo x, yoga x, plyometrics, x stretch.….

Fitness doesn’t have to be that complicated!

I have a family. We barely have time to eat dinner together some days. I don’t have time for P90X or whatever else the latest fitness craze is. I also don’t have time to balance tempo runs, speed intervals, hill intervals, and complicated running programs which require me to measure VO2Max, Max Heartrate, Target Heartrate, Lactate Threshold, and who knows what else so that I can reach my new PR. I haven’t had a PR since 1997.

Calories in <= Calories out

The formula for fitness is easy. Make sure you burn as many or more calories than you consume. Keep the calories you consume as healthful as possible. Make the calories you burn as enjoyable as possible. That’s the long term solution to health and fitness — and it’s a lifelong commitment, not the latest exercise or diet fad promising to get you lean and trim (or buff, or strong, or fast…) in 90 days.

Now if you’re an elite athlete, it’s different. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe we all want to be elite. Maybe if we train like the elite athletes do, maybe if we follow the complicated and rigid training programs, maybe if we make our workouts more scientific, then maybe we too can be elite someday or at least be able able to move forward a few feet in the pack at the starting line because now we’re in a different pace group.

Or maybe we’ll just create more stress for ourselves, not enjoy running as much, and not enjoy as much time with our families as we otherwise could.

Keep running simple and enjoyable

I’m a big fan of Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits. He knows how to keep things simple. Sometimes de-cluttering and simplifying helps us to rediscover the joy and wonder in activities that at best we have started to take for granted, and at worst have become a chore and a burden. Leo has a great post on simple fitness on his site. Check it out, and leave a comment below to share your thoughts.

And then for your next workout forget about all the complicated stuff. Lace up your shoes, leave your watch and heart rate monitor at home, and just run for the fun of it. You’ll be glad you did.