Running for Your Life: Reward Yourself

You gotta love that early moment in “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” when our hero scoots off in her sparkly sneakers and runs up to an urban jogger and greets him with a smile and remarks, her arms pumping with glee, how much she loves to run.

Kimmy, for the uninitiated, has been out of cultural circulation for a medieval generation, fifteen years, so missed the Great Running Craze, the movement away from running that children do in play to what adults do in a workout.

The active word here is “work.” A big part of what has kept me running for my life all these years – I’ll be sixty in October – is that I’ve kept work and running (writing and reading, too) separate. For me, like Kimmy, running is pleasure … I “work” for a living, in my salaryman life. But that’s where my work ends.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t set a reward for the running that I do. (And not by running with music, because, by my lights, the music lives in the reward category. I know this is old school, but how about turning on your favorite tunes AFTER a run as you celebrate by singing in the shower ? … Just a thought.)

Make your reward something simple. Maybe after the shower, unwrap an energy bar with your “juice” of choice and watch a little “Kimmy.” We can all learn from that girl.

Next: Running for Your Life: Bern, Baby, Bern!



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