Like many (most?) runners, I have a few routes I course through week after week.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. The advantages are mundane: parking in the same spot every day, knowing the roads I’m taking are pretty safe, avoiding annoying intersections, pretty scenery, etc, etc. The disadvantages are mostly on the training side: the body can get used to the same route over and over again; the mind can wander when it’s in a comfortable flow of familiar terrain.
For a runner like me, the advantages can outweigh the disadvantages for a very long time, possibly forever. For example, when I go to my parents’ house, I still run the same routes I did when I was a teenager. They’re still hard in the same places, and they still give back in the same places. My mind is still calm there, but I can also still work hard.
This is contrary to much received wisdom about where to run. It seems to almost be a fetish to try to run in new places and on new routes; entire careers seem to be made by touring new trails and race routes. The overall message is that running new routes is good for training both the body and the mind, because your body isn’t used to them and you’re forced to mentally pay attention to them.
Unfortunately, changing up routes regularly is not possible for most runners. We need those mundane advantages of parking, safety, and traffic convenience to make sure that we can fit our runs into our days. And the promise of pretty scenery has never, in my experience, ever been a drawback, either.
But I hear over and over again from folks about how their routes get boring, and they end up just letting their runs get fewer and farther between as that boredom cloys at them. They’re stuck in the perception that once the newness of a route is gone, they can no longer perform on it. But that is untrue, and there are two logical counters to that argument:
If we accept as correct that our runs are at least as much about our brains as they are about our muscles, then the slippage into comfort and boredom is an advantage, not a disadvantage. The modern world does not permit us to be bored, after all; the moment the irritation of boredom takes over, a notification pops up to let us know someone has commented on our thing or that the whatever-we-wanted has gone on sale or a new episode of whichever program has just dropped. Entertainment is all around us.
But boredom is where creativity lives. If we can push past our boredom and force/persuade ourselves to do something with it, instead of just distracting ourselves from it, we start to see things from new angles; our brains start making connections it's never made before. That is valuable, especially as creativity and continuous learning increase in value.If you feel bored on a route, it is as least as possible that you might simply have become so fit that you’ve outstripped that route's utility as it is possible that you’ve become overfamiliar with it.
Your fitness increases as you work. Even if your race times don’t decrease, your fitness can still be increasing in other terms, like blood oxygen level or cognitive activity. If you’ve been working hard, then you can reasonably anticipate that you’re increasing your fitness. If you find your mind wandering on your route, it’s quite possible that you’ve become so fit you’ve got to further engage to get more out of this route. Pretty cool.
I regularly try new things on routes to keep myself engaged. I do fartlek runs, focus on body posture on different parts of my runs, and consciously notice different parts of the scenery.
But sometimes, like all of us, I realize that it’s not just my mental focus, and it’s not just that I haven’t tried something new on my route recently. I actually need to make up a new route. Oh noooooooooo!
If you’ve ever tried it, you know that making up a new route is a pain. You have to maintain or find new solutions for all those mundane advantages I talked about before, while at the same time you have to accept the discomfort that comes with the new physical and mental challenges. While the new challenges are great for your mind and your body, it’s not like climbing new hills is a wonderful, enlightening experience itself. It hurts.
But it must be done. I’m going to experiment with a few new routes in the upcoming weeks, and I’ll write about what I come up with. Let the exploration begin, and whether you’re on a well-worn course or one you’re still trying to figure out, for today, remember: go run.
First off, I loved this subject line. I HAD to open it. And also Yesssss to the boredom. Thanks for linking that video!