Rediscover the pleasure of running!

How many times have we heard – he is addicted to sports, the WHO has officially classified this addiction, it is called bigorexia (don't ask us who invented this term!). So, it's true that sometimes we can have the impression that the practice of running, which previously cleared our minds, ends up numbing us, and we go for a run, like we go to the office, more so habit only for pure pleasure, like on a long straight line without, not really life or the sensations we are looking for...

In this case, it may be time to change certain elements of your preparation, your training, and to evolve your practice (try trail running for example) and make it less boring and more fun. Here we offer you some simple tips to rediscover the pleasure of running.

The first basic advice will obviously be to change your training routine, that is to say change the schedule, and/or change your route and/or change your training pace, or even change your approach (if you are used to running alone, you might consider changing this and running with another person or group for example). It is also useful to cut yourself off from your usual reference points, particularly technological ones. Ok, this GPS watch is great, but don't you end up becoming a slave to it? It's a bit like a fisherman who sets out on his boat with his depth sounder, he watches it constantly, and ends up forgetting the pleasure of sailing, even without bass or mackerel under his boat. Force yourself to run without a GPS watch, go back to your origins and listen to your breathing, your rhythm, without technological assistance. With this in mind, for a better understanding, a better apprehension of your environment, Stimium Ashwagandha , the most powerful natural physical anti-stress, will be very relevant just like Stimium Bacopa which allows the strengthening of concentration, by increasing the speed of processing of information. No need for a GPS watch anymore, you will be able to feel all the effects, speed and trajectories yourself.

Another piece of advice is the change of pace, this 1 hour outing at 11 km/h is great, which we master perfectly, but isn't it ultimately a little boring? What if we changed our running frequency, its amplitude, that we played a little on heart rate, playing “Kenyan” with multiple changes of rhythm (come on, I do a 15km/h up to the tree at 500 meters for example then I do a recovery over 400m at 8/9km/h). With this type of change, you will discover new sensations, no more regular rhythm routine, and you will see in particular that this type of training with irregular rhythms can help enormously on races with a lot of traffic in the first 2/3 kilometers where you often have to push your elbows a little and go into overdrive to position yourself well and set your pace.

A more psychological approach to training can also be considered. More and more runners practice a psychological activity in addition to pure running, this could be sophrology courses, hypnosis or meditation, either before, after, or even during the effort. This means, especially outside the city and the noise of the city, to no longer run with your music, but to run while listening to your body, your breathing, the environment around you, feeling your feet crashing into the ground. , playing with the wind and the external elements is also a way of breaking the routine and being more attentive to yourself and what you are doing.

In the end, to avoid taking your running as a new routine, whatever the advice, you should first avoid trying to run faster and seek performance. We must free ourselves from the quest for permanent improvement, and rather become a seeker of pleasure, of new sensations, of discoveries, which we often find on a run in nature, a session in the woods, or a trail plan with friends. Running for pleasure will not make your times worse at all, it is obviously always good to set yourself goals, less than 4 hours or less than 3 hours in the marathon, but also so fantastic to admire for example this extraordinary landscape on the Nice Cannes, losing perhaps 1 or 2 minutes because your mind has gone to this boat that you see in the distance is not dramatic, quite the contrary since the time you took to imagine yourself on this boat, you probably swallowed several hundred meters. All these great races only happen once a year, it's ultimately a real shame not to be able to make the most of them, running, it must remain enjoyable and it will always remain excellent for your health!

We all have a different objective when we run, but the same motivation for the taste of effort while knowing that these sessions will shape our body and that our physical and psychological condition will always be reinforced by the regular practice of a sport of endurance. We are lucky in France to have fantastic courses for leisure runners, experienced runners or even children. On a weekend for example, in addition to bringing books, taking simple equipment with shoes, shorts and a T-shirt will allow you to see many more things in reality. There is no progress without pleasure, so you have to imagine everything to make your next running session something different, something you will remember!