Mantra

My jogging has been far more successful than it has ever been before. In part, this is due to my increased motivation (however self-inflicted). But I have accidentally hit upon another factor.

Every time I've gone jogging, I have always listened to music. And I do mean every time; I've never gone jogging without it. My thinking was that it would keep me distracted from the jogging itself, which is what I really don't like. This is sound reasoning in theory, but fails to work in practice. My brain could not trick my body when it knew I was trying to trick it. If anything, I would say I would get tired more quickly, as I focussed in on the fact I was paying no attention to the music and could barely hear it anyway. In other words, it knocked me out of concentration instead of into it.

Well, the first time I went jogging this month, I found that my phone had died just before I was ready to go. Having finally psyched myself up to go, I didn't want to wait for it to charge and left without it. Once again, this was the first time I had ever done so.

Well, it worked incredibly well. Without the music distracting me, I very quickly got into the zone and was able to focus on what I was doing and also kind of let my mind wander. Previously, I would set some goal for myself of how far or long I was going to job and just barely make it every time. This time, right out of the gate, I went an extra 15 minutes and felt great about it once I got home (as opposed to sweaty and miserable, I was merely sweaty). True, I was pretty sore afterward. But this was due to a lack of proper warming up, something easily remedied. I actually look forward to the jog now, a definite change. Hopefully, I can make it last!