Why Can’t I Stay Consistent?

(Photo: Scott Rokis)

You think you should just be able to run consistently every day, like your training plan says.

It should come easy.

It’s what ultrarunners do, at the least the good ones who know what they’re doing.

“That used to be me,” you think, “But I can’t seem to get my runs in. What’s wrong with me?”

“I just need to try harder.”

“I need to just schedule all my runs and commit to them.”

“Tomorrow. I’m definitely going to be consistent starting tomorrow.”

Pushing yourself into action like this can work for a while but it won’t last.

Upping the pressure to boot camp drill instructor level won’t work either.

And neither will telling everyone you’re going to do it so you feel accountable.

Trying harder at this thing that isn’t working isn’t the answer because consistency isn’t the real problem.

You don’t want consistency, you want what you think it will give you - enough training to feel confident and to be able to finish your race. 

No one starts running for the love of being consistent. Consistency is just a means to the end you want.

But it’s still a clear alert that something is wrong.

If you can’t stay fairly consistent training for a race, no matter how hard you try or how much you want to, there’s something about the race that’s stopping you.

It’s hard to train consistently for a race you don’t want to do.

And the reason you can’t get consistent is stronger than all the reasons you can, so it’s holding you back like an invisible force field.

You’re stuck between conflicting wants. 

On one hand you want to train the best you can for the big race. On the other hand, for some reason, you don’t.

Why?

Maybe you entered it months ago and life has changed so much it feels like an obligation instead of an exciting challenge.

Or you only got in this race because everybody wants to and you thought you should, but now you secretly don’t.

Or you got off the wait list at the last minute and don’t think you have enough time to train right so why bother?

Or you’ve put off training so long, a last-minute effort won’t matter, so why try? 

Or it’s easier to beat yourself up for not being consistent than face the prospect of failing.

Or you’re scared you’ll put forth the effort and still fail, so everyone will know your best wasn’t good enough and it’s far less painful not to try.

Or you’re scared to commit to a training plan that might not be right so when you’re deciding every day whether to run, short term immediate gratification wins over the uncommitted-to plan.

Whatever the reason, that’s the problem you need to solve.

Decide which reason you like best - the reason for training consistently or the reason for not.

Once you clear that up, the consistency will take care of itself.

If inconsistent training has you stressing and you need help working through your own resistance, email or message me and we’ll set up a consult call to talk through a plan for solving it.