438: Don’t Let December Take You Down: The Science of Staying Consistent During the Busy Season

December has a way of shining a spotlight on our default habits. With holiday schedules, travel, celebrations, and a million extra to-dos, it’s easy to feel like your running routine gets thrown off track. But here’s what you might not realize: December doesn’t break your consistency— it simply reveals the defaults you fall back on when life gets full.

In this episode, we talk about how to shift those defaults so you can stay connected to your identity as a runner, even in the busiest season of the year.

You’ll hear us dive into:

• Consistency over performance — December isn’t about PRs; it’s about showing up in small, doable ways.
• Minimum viable dose training — How to keep your body and nervous system supported with simple, intentional movement.
• Adopting new, supportive habits — So you don’t feel like you’re “starting over” in January.
• Simplifying your routine — Letting go of perfection and choosing what matters most.
• Small wins to build momentum — Because they count (and add up).
• Guidance for January racers — How to stay focused without overwhelming yourself.
  
  

This is your reminder to give yourself grace, move with intention, and stay rooted in the identity of “I’m a runner,” even when the month gets busy.

Tune in and let’s make December work for you, not against you.

01:18 The Challenge of December for Runners

02:59 Maintaining Consistency Amidst Chaos

03:41 Reframing December: Protecting Momentum

06:07 The Impact of Stress and Routine Disruption

12:08 Overcoming All or Nothing Thinking

15:46 Shifting Focus: From Performance to Consistency

17:44 Minimum Viable Dose Training

21:01 The Intentional Mile Challenge

22:11 The Benefits of Outdoor Exercise

23:12 Maintaining Routine and Identity

24:11 Always Something: Alternatives to Running

25:47 Consistency and Its Long-Term Benefits

29:02 Training Through December: Practical Tips

33:52 Preparing for a Race in December

39:27 Setting Intentions and Practical Takeaways

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

December is upon us. And for so many people that means a lot of extra things on your plate. And so many years we hear. People say the same thing, I'll get back on track in January, and they just blow off December. But here's the truth, December does not break your training. It reveals your defaults. So today we're gonna talk about how to change those defaults so that you can stay consistent in December, so that instead of starting the new year off, feeling like you're already behind, you feel like you are in control. So stay tuned. welcome back to the show runners. Happy December. Happy December. I know I, I see, feel like I say this all the time, but I can't believe it's December.

Speaker 2: 1:05

You do say that you've been saying that since the start of November.

Speaker: 1:08

It's okay.

Speaker 2: 1:09

Yep.

Speaker: 1:09

I'm still gonna, because it's still I feel like this year has gone quickly, but also not in some way just because this year has been so crazy, but I just feel like time is flying by and I think it does. It is true what people say about when you have kids, how time tends to feel like it's speeding up.

Speaker 2: 1:28

The days are long, the years go fast.

Speaker: 1:30

Yeah, that's a great one for sure. but especially when they get older and they're teenagers and it's life is just looks a lot different, but anywho. Today we're talking about December, and we are talking about how to stay consistent in December because this is a struggle that we know so many people have because December is often filled with a lot of different things. It tends to disrupt our normal routine. We have holidays, school events, weather, travel, all sorts of things going on, and so a lot of times. We hear runners talk about how December is a losing battle for consistency, but we are here today to tell you that it doesn't have to be. If that's what works for you in your life, then fine. Don't beat yourself up for it. Give yourself some grace and just accept it. But if you are someone that wants to do something about it and you want to improve your consistency. In the month of December. That is what we are here today to help you do.

Speaker 2: 2:25

All right. Consistency for December. I like it. it's an interesting take'cause we've had so many people that have told us that it's very difficult. You point out a lot of the challenges to this, when I started running December was the time between seasons, like the state meet was always in California. The state meet was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And then. Track would essentially unofficially start as soon as we got back from Christmas break? I don't know. I have no idea because I was in high school at the time, so I don't know when it officially began, but as soon as we got back from Christmas break, we were off and going and we would regularly get together and start up essentially. So December was this weird, unstructured time for me. So it still, it had this weird it was the un uncertainty of it. And I think a lot of people, because there's changes in schedule, also hit December and they're not quite sure what to do with it, and it can lead to a, just a lack of anything happening. So that's what we've got going.

Speaker: 3:19

Yeah, and I think a lot of real life runners look at this as not just this lack of structure and consistency, but also that their routine is completely up in the air because their schedule and their day to day, their week to week looks so much different than it normally does because of all the additional things that December brings. A lot of times when that happens, we oftentimes, especially we runners, tend to be creatures of habit. We like to do the same types of things on the same days. And when that gets disrupted, it throws a lot of people off completely. And so we are gonna be talking about that today and kind of this whole all or nothing mindset that a lot of people have and how we can counteract that. But I wanna start by just Reframing the month of December. So unless you are someone that has a race in January or February, which we're gonna be talking about later in the episode, if you are someone with a race on the calendar, December does have to actually be a training month for you, and that's part of the decision and the commitment that you made when you signed up for a race in January or February, that required some training in December. But for those of you without. A race at the beginning of the year. I want you to start to think of December. Maybe not as the month to make huge gains, but as the month to protect your momentum. So you've been training consistently throughout the year. maybe you haven't been, but December. So regardless of. If you feel like you've been consistent up until this point or not, December can either be a time to get that ball rolling and start some momentum for you with very small intentional practices or the time that you are actually protecting that momentum. So it's not necessarily about trying to overcome these huge hurdles and jump into something. Big and new, but it's taking what you've got and figuring out, okay, what can I do to preserve and maintain this so that again, when I'm starting the new year, I don't feel like I'm in a deficit. And that's when those small intentional practices become even more powerful now than any other time of year. So those habits that maybe you've been working on at different times of the year, this is not the time to just let them go completely out the window. At the same time, maybe you're not as strict with them as you have been in other times of the year, and that's totally okay.

Speaker 2: 5:36

that's why it's nice to have a little extra grace during this time, but a lot of people. Tend to take that, I'm gonna give myself some grace for December and they give themselves off for December. And that's not what this is. Like you said, it's the habits that you've established over the course of the year, the small version of them. This doesn't mean that you're ramping training up during December. This means that you are continuing to do something so that when January hits, you're not starting from scratch. You're not like, alright, the ball has completely stopped moving and I gotta give it that initial. Oomph to get going. It's nice to hit the new year and have the ball already moving, even if it's not moving fast. Like even if maybe things were rolling really good through the fall, you just want them to continue moving somewhat so that when it hits January, things are going really well.

Speaker: 6:20

So going back to the concept of inertia, you want to keep that ball in motion because. December is tough for a lot of different reasons. Number one, there is a much higher physiological stress load in December, both physiological and emotional and mental stress load in December. So we have essentially a higher baseline level of stress. There's so many things on our plate. We've got more things to do. We've got Christmas shows, we have baking cookies, we have, doing the Christmas shopping and the Christmas cards and all these things that we do. That we don't do in normal times of the year and other times of the year. So your full plate just started getting piled on top of, and this leads to that higher baseline of stress, which leads your nervous system to move more into sympathetic nervous system dominance. So we've talked in the past about the difference between the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetics. Your sympathetic is your stress mode. Parasympathetic is rest and recovery mode. So if you're starting with this higher baseline of stress, because. Stress is stress and all the stress, no matter if it's physical, stress, emotional, psychological, financial, all the different areas that where we can experience stress in our life, it all goes into the same bucket. So we still have. This one bucket and now we're adding more things to it. Add on things like poor sleep because of travel, or late nights or screen time. last night I was up until pretty much midnight, almost midnight. I think we got into. Bed like right before midnight because I was trying to secure some of those last minute Cyber Monday deals, doing some online shopping. And I had to wake up at 5:00 AM this morning to go meet with my running group.'cause Tuesdays are my early morning runs, I guess I should say. I. I shouldn't say I had to, I was just

Speaker 2: 8:06

about to correct you on that.

Speaker: 8:07

but that was my plan. My plan was to wake up at 5 0 5 and go run at five 30, because that's what I do every Tuesday. And that's a commitment that I've made, and that's one of the ones that I want to commit to, especially if I tell people I'm gonna be there. That's an important thing for me with my integrity. Add on poor sleep, right? Add on some of these nutritional shifts that we've got going on. A lot of times during the holidays, we don't always eat the same way that we eat the rest of the year because there's more indulgence. Bring in those Christmas cookies, right? When we have Christmas cookies in the house. I'm eating way more cookies than I normally eat because I love cookies. And cookies are delicious.

Speaker 2: 8:42

as a teacher, there are treats in the teacher's lounge throughout the month of December because there are always parents that are like, oh, this is gonna be something nice for the teachers. So I can go to the teacher's lounge on most days, and there's a platter of something or of some sort of baked goods. And depending on what my training is, that may actually be beneficial for me, but it's not beneficial for everybody.

Speaker: 9:01

and'cause the shifts in these nutritions can lead to less stable energy levels. There's nothing wrong with cookies, there's nothing wrong with pies and desserts and some of these more indulgent types of foods that we eat. But what those things can do is those things can spike your blood sugar, and when your blood sugar is being constantly spike throughout the day, that's leading to less stable energy levels. You get the spike and then you get the dip, and so you're. Sugar levels and your cortisol levels and all the hormones in your body, they're just not regulated the same way that they are at other times of the year. Add on again, the emotional load, because a lot of times the holidays trigger old patterns. They trigger expectations. They bring family that you're going to see maybe that you haven't seen all year long, and you know that Uncle Rick is going to bring up some story from when you were 10 years old and you just don't wanna deal with that, right? There's a lot of these. Emotional triggers that we have to deal with. Maybe you're someone that has lost someone this year and you know that this is gonna be the first holiday without that person or that in your life. That's a lot, So there's a, this. All of these areas of stress that are affecting you. And so when you have all these different things going on, your perceived effort goes up and oftentimes your motivation goes down and that leads to training feeling a lot harder than it should. It makes your training oftentimes feel like it's just one more thing you have to do, just one more thing on your plate.

Speaker 2: 10:30

I think, I know you were just picking random names out there, but I'm pretty sure that I actually spent my. 10th birthday at my Uncle Rick's house.

Speaker: 10:38

Oh, that's fun. Yeah, I realized that after I said it, like I was just trying to pick a random name and I was like, oh, shoot, that's actually Kevin's uncle.

Speaker 2: 10:44

Yeah. I think that was actually the year that I slept over at my cousin's and we stayed up to midnight to watch the clock click over Uhhuh so that I turned from nine to 10.

Speaker: 10:52

Oh, that's cute. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 10:53

I know.

Speaker: 10:53

But that was in July.

Speaker 2: 10:55

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was not a December thing. No,

Speaker: 10:57

not a holiday

Speaker 2: 10:57

thing. no. Not a holiday thing. But, one more thing on that, like why is December so tricky? the time shifted on us. So if you train in the afternoon, that was the

Speaker: 11:05

beginning of November. I

Speaker 2: 11:05

know, but it's getting worse. Yeah. As we approach That's true.

Speaker: 11:08

It is getting darker. It is

Speaker 2: 11:09

getting darker earlier and earlier. Yeah. Like at the. In November, I could still run in the evening, like we could have practice and I could then run at the end of it. That would never happen right now, thankfully, the cross country season's done because if we're not done running around here around five, it's starting to get dark, like car headlights are going on. The sun sets around 5 25 15 now, but it's getting earlier and earlier. Depending on what your job is, that might make training in the evening. Now training in the dark. And that could cause problems for a lot of schedules,

Speaker: 11:40

right? Especially if you're in an area where there's now snow and cold and ice, and then you add dark on top of that. Those are some more hurdles that you have to get over in order to be consistent with your training. So all of that to say, we hopefully this. Just us talking about it didn't add more stress onto you, but it's just to acknowledge that there are real things that are happening in your life in this month that's not just in your head. It's not like you're just, you just feel like it's too much. there's a lot of different changes that are going on that makes what you're feeling and this increased stress load a very real thing.

Speaker 2: 12:12

Yeah, don't worry. The rest of the podcast is gonna help you. You've got this. You are amazing. Here it comes. Here we go.

Speaker: 12:18

Here we go. one of the traps that I think a lot of people fall into, and I think that this almost becomes a little worse for some people when they get into midlife because. Runners and midlife seem to be especially vulnerable to the all or nothing thinking trap of if I can't do it right, I won't do it at all. Or if I can't hit my workout just the way that it's listed here, I'm not going to do anything because it's not worth it or it's not. The way that I'm, I should be doing it or it's not going to be good enough. We have all these judgements that we place on things, and this leads to a lot of missed sessions, which then fuels the guilt, which then fuels inconsistency. So it becomes this vicious circle because you don't have maybe the amount of time that you want for your training sessions. So you like, I don't really have the 45 minutes that I need, oh, I guess I'm just not going to train today. And that's going to lead you to feeling bad that you missed your session. You're gonna feel guilty, and then that's just going to continue to fuel more inconsistency.

Speaker 2: 13:18

And when you do then get back and you do actually have that time, that 45 minute session is not gonna go the way that you hoped it did because you've missed the last couple ones. Instead of doing part of the set session, instead of getting the general idea of the, what that training point was supposed to be for the day and just doing it in a smaller, reduced version that fit into the time you had, you went with nothing. And so January comes along and you're trying to hit these workouts, and now you're disappointed that you're not hitting the same times you were hitting November because you have a hole in your training called December.

Speaker: 13:48

Yeah. And so oftentimes like this, all or nothing thinking that we end up. clinging to that. We use that because routine is very good for us for a lot of different reasons, but a lot of us use routine to help us regulate our emotions, and when our routine breaks, your brain can interpret that as I'm failing or I'm losing fitness, even when that's not true. One session, if you miss one session, you're not losing any fitness whatsoever. Even if you miss two sessions, you're still not losing fitness. It's when. Those sessions become, again, like that cycle I just talked about, you miss the session, you're guilt you, you feel guilty about it, and then that just continues to fuel inconsistency and you tend to drop back into that all or nothing thinking.

Speaker 2: 14:33

Yeah. The all or nothing often leads to the nothing like that's the problem with all or nothing is it usually is simply nothing thinking.

Speaker: 14:40

Yeah. It's also like the f it effect. Yeah, that's a good one too. And I'm gonna be. G rated G or PG on this podcast, and not actually say the word, but it's like that's a real effect. Like when your training doesn't go the way that you want it, you're like, oh, screw it. I'm just not gonna do anything, or I'm just not gonna do it. It's not worth it. I'm not, if it's not five miles, then it's not. It doesn't even count. Like we put these arbitrary numbers on ourself to tell ourselves when things count or when they don't count.

Speaker 2: 15:05

and people do this with training weeks of, oh, I missed my Monday and Tuesday workout. I guess I'll get going again next Monday. And this tends to happen for the entire month of December. Is the first week starts a whole bunch of like holiday stuff and there's shopping and there's all sorts of various things. There's Christmas shows and whatever the time constraints are. The first week it goes poorly. You're looking at the schedule, moving forward and seeing it's only getting harder. It's gonna lead more difficult for me, do my schedule. I guess I'll just get back to it in January when I have time again.

Speaker: 15:34

and this is going to lead, like Kevin just said, to some of those feelings, those negative feelings in January when you realize how the inconsistency in December has. Actually caught up to you because one or two missed sessions, no big deal. But if you miss the entire month of December, or if you miss two to three weeks, that is going to affect you. Not to say you can't get back into it effectively because you can. You're just going to have to modify and understand that January is probably not gonna look the way you want it to be. So what do we actually need to focus on? What actually works for us in December? If you have this all or nothing mindset, if you tend to lose consistency in December, I want you to start to shift your focus away from performance of I have to hit these certain numbers or these certain paces and just focus on consistency. And we have to redefine consistency as well, which we're gonna talk about in a second. So we're shifting the focus from performance. To consistency. We're shifting the focus from volume, like training volume, the amount of training that you're doing to identity of, I am a runner. That means I need to run, I need to do some training. The amount of training that you do doesn't determine whether or not you are a runner. Just the fact that you are running, you are training, you're doing your strength training, whatever it might be. That is what makes you a runner. The fact that you're thinking like a runner and you're making decisions like a runner, maybe you're not gonna be able to get that same volume in. And that's okay. And the final shift we wanna make is shifting from intensity, thinking about how hard your workouts need to be, because this is one of the big things that a lot of people do too. They feel like. They're not getting as much of their training in. They don't have enough volume, and so then they make every session super intense to try to make up for it. So instead of thinking of that way and focusing on intensity, we need to think about how to su better support our nervous system and how exercise and our training can really help to support our nervous system during this stressful time of year.

Speaker 2: 17:33

Yeah, and we'll, we will keep getting there. As the episode continues, there is a point for having some intensity, but every session cannot be, an all out intense session. if you are used to running five days outta the week and now you're only doing three, all three of those days cannot be hard days. That is not a balanced training load that even though you're only going three days, even though you're at 60% on volume, you've drastically overdone the intensity and. With reduced volume, you've still set yourself up for burnout and injury. So that's a terrible move,

Speaker: 18:04

right? So what we would like to introduce is the idea of minimum viable dose training. Okay? So your minimum viable dose. Now, this is like a term that you may have heard. If you are in the business world of the MVP, the minimum viable product, when someone is trying to launch a new product out into the marketplace, the question is always, what's the minimum viable product? What can we launch? Because we know the first. Version of anything is not going to be perfect, but we have to get something out into the marketplace so that we can learn from it. Make figure out where, what are the strengths, what are the weaknesses. Then we can change it and release an another, version of it. So we have to figure out what is that minimum viable product. So here, what is the minimum viable dose of training that will help to keep you on track? So the things that really count during this month is number one, intentional movement. Now I like to think of this as okay, how can I move my body today in an intentional way? So yes, people will talk about parking further away. Like when you go to the store, you go to the mall, you park at the end of the parking lot so that you get more steps to walk from your car into the store. Totally fine. That to me would be intentional movement because you're making that decision intentionally. But I would. Invite you to consider trying to set aside, even if it's just five to 10 minutes per day, where you can move your body with intention as a way to say, okay, this is the way that I'm going to take care of myself during this time period. The other things you wanna think about when we, I. Or looking at the minimum viable training load is repetition. Okay. You wanna make it simple. So doing the same thing over and over again is totally fine because again, we're looking more at maintenance versus performance. We're looking at. How to, how are we going to reinforce our identity as a runner? So again, to be a runner, you need to run, you need to train. So what can I do that is going to help me to reinforce that identity? And then what can I do to help reduce the cognitive load, the mental load that you. Have trying to figure out, okay, what am I gonna do today? Like the training, like that part of training tends to be a big hurdle for a lot of people, especially in this. So if you're not following a training plan and you have to figure out what to do each day, and then you get thrown off your normal routine, then you're like, but now, but I have to figure out something here. What can I fit in? So that time for you to make a decision. Is wasting some of your valuable training time. So having something simple, easy, repeatable that you can do makes. It much more likely that you're going to be able to stick to this.

Speaker 2: 20:41

Okay. So when you talk minimum viable dose, does this vary per person? Is this like a conscious choice that we get to decide what our personal, minimal viable dose is that still aligns with our identity as athlete? Like it can be something small and simple, but I feel like. One person's if you're coming off of training for a marathon, you have a different volume level than if you're coming off of training for a 5K. If you're used to training three days out a week, that's different than used to training six days out of a week. So that minimal viable dose is not like a blanket statement for everybody. it's a blanket concept, but every person comes up with their own idea for what it is for them.

Speaker: 21:19

Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2: 21:19

Okay, so what do we have for like ideas?

Speaker: 21:21

So one of the ideas that I would love to offer, and this is actually one the challenge that we're doing inside of the real life runners team. So if you wanna join us in this challenge, it's only the first week of December. You can join the team and you can get it on this as well. But we are doing a one intentional mile per day, so it can be walked or run. It doesn't matter. But you're setting aside time to actually move your body for one mile per day. And why the intentional mile works so well is that there's a very low barrier to entry. You can pretty much do this anywhere you are in the world, and you can, even if the weather is terrible outside, you could literally walk a mile in your house. It might. Take a lot of loops. or like in the hallway, if you live like in a condo or an apartment building, like you could go up and down the hallway. People already think you're weird. You're a runner. Okay, so this is not anything new, right? But the intentional mile. So you can do this in a lot of different places. It helps to maintain a routine. It helps maintain that consistency of I know what I'm doing today. I know at least one thing that I'm going to do today. It helps to preserve your running identity. So there's a lot, there's some question marks here where people are like, if I'm just walking, am I really a runner? some days you can run it if you, especially if you wanna get it done faster, if you have less time available and you need to go out and run that mile that day, then that's totally fine too. It getting outside, especially if you're able to do this outside, getting out into nature, getting outside, getting that fresh air, just breathing more deeply. This is all going to help. Support your nervous system as well. so a walk can actually do wonders for your nervous system. And this can work even if you're traveling or during, moments of chaos. if you're traveling again, you could walk around the airport if you want to. I, one of our team members was talking about how this is what she and her husband did. Like they had a long layover. So they just walked around the airport for 30 minutes.

Speaker 2: 23:13

They visited every single gate at the entire airport. It was a really fun map that I saw of the airport and the nooks and crannies of that particular airport, which I thought was funny. but yeah, it works. You can knock out a mile in a whole lot of conditions and. If you're really pressed for time, you might, and you're walking it, you don't really even have to change into running clothes. Now, part of the reasons why I would suggest actually changing is it does help maintain that routine, like every day, and identity. It really helps the identity part of it. It says, look, I'm getting into my running stuff and I am heading out the door for my intentional mile, because that is the routine that you might wanna jump back into, come January. Where you have more time, it maintains the routine and it lets you be able to continue to say day after day, I'm a runner, I'm a runner, I'm a runner. So you don't have to reestablish that thing about, I don't know what I was in December, but now that it's January, I'm gonna try to be a runner again. You just were a runner through December. You're still a runner in January,

Speaker: 24:11

right? And so when you're maintaining that consistency and that spot in your schedule, even if that spot is shorter than it is during other times of the year, you're still. In integrity to maintain that time period, whatever it might be for yourself, for moving your body for exercise. So other examples. So an intentional mile is a great idea. something else you could do would be like a 10 minute strength flow. So again, this is switching over from away from that all or nothing mentality and switching that to always something, right? So from all or nothing to always something. So other examples. The intentional mile, maybe a 10 minute strength routine, like you can do jumping jacks anywhere. You can do squats, anywhere, lunges, these types of things. You can do those things anywhere with no equipment.

Speaker 2: 25:03

These are also things that you can do in an airport. You can ask Angie. She's done them both in an airport and just on the plane itself.

Speaker: 25:09

I have done that. That is true. I haven't done jumping on the airport plane. That would be ridiculous. No, you

Speaker 2: 25:13

should not do jumping jacks on the airplane, but lunges right down the middle aisle that. You did do that? that was more

Speaker: 25:17

for mobility than just the actual like strength lunges because my hip flexors were so tight from sitting for so long.

Speaker 2: 25:24

Okay. So fine. That slides into your next possibility here. You could have five minutes of mobility. And that was, that is really what you had that day because it was a cross country flight I think that we were on. So it was, that was an all day of travel. And that means it's just an enormous amount of. Sitting on a plane and so yeah, you were lunging down the middle aisle, which I thought was fantastic, and other people probably thought you were weird and that's okay.'cause as we already established several minutes ago, we're all weird. We're, it's a, we're all runners.

Speaker: 25:51

Yeah. And also, who cares? I'm never gonna see those people again by most likely if someone ever comes up to me and we're like, oh my gosh, you were that girl that were lunging on the plane 10 years ago, I will be floored by myself. And actually I'll probably take it as a compliment.

Speaker 2: 26:05

Hopefully they're a listener.

Speaker: 26:06

Yeah. Perfect. This, all these different things, even if it's short, even if it's five minutes or 10 minutes here, it helps keep your physiology primed and your identity intact because I think that a lot of people overestimate how much is actually necessary for you to maintain. Because a lot of times it's less than you think, especially if you have a large base built. You can maintain where you are for a decent amount of time with just a little bit here and there. It often takes and this is where why it's confusing for a lot of people. Because it takes a long time to get there. It takes a long time to actually build that base of strength or of endurance, but when you're there, it, it takes less energy to actually maintain it, which is a good thing. What can you gain by staying consistent in December, even if it's a shorter training session than you're used to? Number one, you can help to maintain your cardiovascular base. Maybe it's not exactly the same as it was in November, but doing something in December is going to be better than doing nothing in December. So your cardiovascular base is not going to decline as much as it would if you weren't doing anything.

Speaker 2: 27:13

Even if Dec, it declines some, like it's a whole lot easier to bring it back. if you're taking like. Four steps forward and one step back. That's a lot better than four steps forward and three steps back. your January is going to come in better. if you just stopped running for a couple of weeks. Your endurance training, your like ability to run longer is not gonna be all that affected. Your ability to run faster gets affected a little bit, which is why that running with intensity section is important I think. Not that. Every session is a hard session, but that you sprinkle in some faster stuff so that in January your body is used to doing that also. But your body is really good at hanging on to the ability to run long distances, even with small little doses sprinkled in throughout December. So if you're able to get in a few days during the week, that is helpful,

Speaker: 28:01

right? So if you are, maybe you're normally running five days a week and you pull it back to three days a week, and. Even if those sessions are a little bit shorter, it's still better, and you're still maintaining more of that base than you would otherwise by doing some strength training or some mobility or some running. You're also helping to maintain your connective tissue load tolerance. So essentially what that will do is help to reduce your injury risk in January, because if you spend December really not doing much or not doing anything at all, all of your tissues are gonna going to tighten back up. They're going to. lose some of their resilience in your tissue. You wanna maintain that load tolerance because especially like with your tendons and your ligaments, as we get older, we lose some of that elasticity. We lose some of that load tolerance automatically. So doing these small things and helping to maintain that is really important and we'll help to reduce your risk of injury when January.

Speaker 2: 28:56

It prevents you from doing something stupid in January. Also, because a lot of people are like, I know I missed December, but I wanna come back hard in January, and they try to come back where they were. If you're doing some load on the body and you're putting yourself at less injury risk, you're going to have a far more successful January. Then if you're doing nothing and you try and come back in now suddenly you took December off, you hurt yourself in January, and now you're not running again until February. No one wants that setup.

Speaker: 29:22

Yeah, nobody wants that. also moving your body every single day is going to give you more energy throughout the day. You all know that this is true, especially if you're reducing intensity. Like a lot of times when you are going out for a longer run or a more intense run that can sap your energy later in the day. But if you're going out on like shorter runs, easier runs, that actually gives you more energy throughout the day. So that's a huge win because we all know we could use some more energy in December with all the things that are going on in the holidays. as far as your hormones and your recovery goes, this is going to make when you're supporting your body physically and you're allowing yourself to have that more stable energy level. We all know there's a reason that we run. It's physical, but we all know there's mental benefits from running in, from getting outside. That's going to make you less reactive to the stress in your life. You're gonna be able to handle stress better when you know that you've set aside time to do this for yourself. You are going to get better sleep, you are gonna have more stable blood sugar levels, and you're just going to feel overall calmer and steadier in this season because again, you have put down an intention of I am going to move my body. I'm going to take care of myself, even if that looks a little bit different than it does other times of the year.

Speaker 2: 30:34

Yeah, everything that you just rattled off, they all work so well together. Being able to have less stress and have more stable blood sugar leads to better sleep and better sleep, then leads to feeling calmer and being more able to be less reactive to stress. Having better sleep actually leads to more stable blood sugar. Also. It all works together. And then. All this also leads to identity wins, where you're able to maintain that identity of, I am a runner, this is who I am. My training gets adjusted for December, but it doesn't get abandoned for December. I am a person who can train through busy seasons. Maybe that's not the identity that you've had. Maybe you're like, yeah. I'm a runner, but I'm a runner who doesn't really get through December very well, and I start back up in January. You can change that identity to, I'm a runner and I do hard things, and right now I'm going to train through this busy season of my life. And that allows you to then trust your training even more. It builds. Every time you get out there, it allows you to just stack another brick in trusting your overall training process. So when you ramp up training for whatever race you've got in the future, you're gonna trust that process even more because you know that you can get through the difficult sessions.

Speaker: 31:44

I think that yes, you it, you're trusting your training process, but even more than that, you are trusting yourself more because you're showing yourself even with those small wins and these small actions, that you are a person of your word. That when you give your word to something, when you say you're going to do something, you. Actually do it. And that's again, one of the reasons why it's important to make sure that this is a minimum viable dose thing. Like you don't wanna set these huge things of I'm gonna train for an hour every single day of the month of December. If that's something that you know, that is going to be very difficult and very challenging for you because then you're giving your word and you're saying you're gonna do something. You don't end up doing that. That actually breaks trust in yourself. And so when you utilize minimum viable dosage. Then you're actually reinforcing this identity of I am someone who keeps my word. I am in integrity with myself. And then later, because that, again, that's a muscle too. That's a muscle that we need to work and that we need to flex. And then later on in your training, when the days are tough and the sessions are longer, you've already started to build that base and you can just continue to build on it from there. Plus then you start January and you're already in motion. You don't feel like you're starting from scratch. You don't feel like you're back at square run, and this is gold for us. this is exactly what where we need to be. We need to be people who keep our word to ourself, people who are in integrity, people who value movement, and who do what they say they're going to do. And you realize the benefits, the physical, the emotional, the psychological benefits of exercise and moving your body and training. At different levels. It doesn't always have to look the same. You don't have to run five miles every single time you go out. In order for it to count, you can start to give yourself a little grace. And grace can mean maybe you do a little bit less, but you don't abandon it completely. So December doesn't need to be a month that you just survive and get through. It can be. A month where you get to practice who you want to be in 2026. It can be the little jumpstart or kickstart into 2026. You don't need to crush December and be like, oh, just like my training, I totally crushed it. You need to stay connected. You need to stay connected to your body, to your training identity or your identity as an athlete and to your nervous system because that is what's going to lead to long-term sustainable progress.

Speaker 2: 34:07

All right, so that is fantastic for getting through December and maintaining that consistency. But what about if you do have that race at the end of the year or January, February, then December has to look a whole heck of a lot different. Yeah. December is not a time for minimal viable doses. Yeah. December is the time to lock into your training because you have a race in. I think I'm at six weeks right now actually. Yeah.

Speaker: 34:32

And I think this is a perfect thing for you to talk about, because Kevin actually has a race on January 17th. Is it? Or the 18th? The 19th. It's that weekend. whatever that, somewhere in there. Whatever that Saturday is. It's somewhere between the 17th and the 19th I think. I think that's what I blocked out on the calendar today.'cause you forgot to put on the calendar. Silly, silly man. What about if you do have a race? What? How do we navigate December if you have a race and it is more important for you to stick to your training schedule?

Speaker 2: 34:58

I think knowing what it is that you're going to be able to get in is super important. Like making sure that what you have planned out for your training is actually going to fit into the schedule that you have around you, I talked about at the very beginning of the episode. This is between cross country and track season. So I actually have removed something from my plate. I don't have practice after school every day. That completely changes my entire afternoon schedule, and that could throw things haywire. But I've decided if I put a race in January, I can now use this time to really. Lock in and get some training for myself as the priority over training for the high school kids. I actually have two races because there's the school 5K coming up and that one's super, super important'cause I can't lose to the high school kids and then I have to run a really long distance in January. I don't have to, but I choose to. And In Florida training through December is a whole lot different than it is in northern states. It's ideal to train down here in December. It's not raining all the time, and the temperatures are generally really nice. the biggest challenge, honestly, is it gets. Dark at five in the afternoon. But other than that, December is a great time to train down here, so that's why I think it works really well. If you're in a place with cold and snow, you've gotta figure out, how do I lock in and train for this race? Do I need other aspects to my environment? Do I need to make sure I have a treadmill, I've got a bike, I've got a gym that I can go to, that I can get in my training. You have to have a good reason to do that race. You had to have signed up for it for a reason. It's not just ah, I thought it would be convenient to do, because if you are in a place with cold and snow. It's probably not convenient to do that race, so you have to remember why you did it, and that will help you on days that you don't want to get out and train. That okay, this is why I signed up for the race. This is what I want to get out of the race. This is the goal that I have, and it helps you overcome a lot of the other challenges that can happen in the month if you have a really good reason for doing it. I picked the race because it's actually easier in Florida to train hard and long during December.

Speaker: 37:03

So what if you put a race on the calendar in order to force yourself into consistency? Ooh. Because there's a lot of people that say, I'm not consistent unless I have a race on the calendar. So they put a race on the calendar so that they'll be consistent. So if we're telling them, okay, you have to remember why you signed up and that's going to help you. But if the reason that they signed up is consistency, and then they're having a problem with consistency. What say you there?

Speaker 2: 37:31

Okay, so I'm fine with putting a race on the calendar to help maintain consistency through the month of December. There's a lot of places that have New Year's races or races very early in the New Year.'cause sometimes it doesn't hit the weekend, it's whatever that Saturday is around, around New Year's. That's great. That might not be the time to aim for a pr, like that's the way that I'm looking at it is this race is going to help me figure out where I am to launch into 2026. It's going to see this is what I've got to main maintaining consistency through December, and now I know exactly where I am to start the new year. It's. It's going to help with consistency. You have a race on the schedule. Most people, if they put the money down, they sign up for a race. They're not gonna phone it in, they're gonna try. But it's not the time to be like, all right, my training wasn't perfect, but I'm still gonna try and grid it out and get a pr. That's just setting yourself up for mental disappointment.

Speaker: 38:24

Yeah, and I think that again, will exactly relate back to remember why you signed up. Because if you signed up for the consistency and you didn't sign up for performance in a pr, it's important for you to remember that because if the goal was consistency, then great. Make that the goal. And then understand that the race is then. the carrot at the end that's helping you be more consistent. So then if you don't run your best time ever that re remember that was not the goal. The goal was consistency in the process. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:55

If the goal is not performance, then you can't be disappointed with the performance. that's always my take on races. Yeah. if. There's a lot of people that just enjoy racing, and sometimes the goal for that particular race is the outcome. And actually how fast can I go in that? But if you have a lot of races on your calendar, they can't all be, how fast can this race possibly be? Some of them have to just be for the enjoyment.

Speaker: 39:18

Yeah. And if your goal is performance, then your training needs to take a priority, and you might need to say no to some of the holiday engagements that you've been invited to. Or some of the extra things on your plate, like that might be the answer. If you have a big goal that you are training for and you and your performance in that race is really important to you, there's going to be other things that you need to say no to. That might feel really uncomfortable, but that's you making a choice very again, intentionally to prioritize the things that are important to you. as a recap of what to do, what are some practical takeaways for you in this month? Number one, pick. Your intention, like especially, I would love to invite all of you to join us in the intentional mile challenge for December, and if you're doing this. Please tag us on Instagram at real life runners. I would love to, repost you or share you to the stories and all of us support each other together in this real life runners universe. So you can run it, you can walk it, you can run, walk it, you can be indoors or outdoors, morning or night. But again, just do it with intention. Do it and set aside that time for yourself. The second thing I would invite you to shift would be always something options for your non-running days. Okay? So one mile a day, maybe you're going out for a walk, if that's enough for you, that's totally okay. On your non-running days, maybe you want to also put in five minutes of mobility work. 10 minutes of strength work. Maybe you wanna do a warmup before you go out to your, for your run or out for your walk. You just can add in a little five minute mobility routine before or after your walk. Maybe you just wanna add in a breathing practice where you sit for five minutes and do some deep breathing. That is fantastic for your nervous system. And thinking about, going back to nervous system support, how can these intentional choices support my nervous system and my body during this time? And then. Of course, reducing your December expectations on yourself, giving yourself that grace, swapping perfection for consistency, understanding that there's probably going to be at least one time this month where you're not gonna be able to do what you planned on doing. And that's okay. And instead of thinking, okay, I miss this workout, ask yourself, what's something I can do today? oh, it's too bad. I don't have enough time. I guess I'm gonna miss a workout. Let's just say, okay, what can I get in today? Maybe it is five minutes, maybe it's 10 minutes. Maybe you have 20 minutes and you can get in a two mile run, even though you had a four or five mile run on your schedule. Understanding that getting something in is better than nothing is a really big perspective shift that we need to make through it during this month.

Speaker 2: 41:53

Yeah, and the last thing you have down here I think is super, super important because I think identity is critical throughout the month. You don't wanna lose your runner identity because you. You literally stop running. So keep track of all these wins along the way. Keep track of the days where you're getting in that intentional mile. Keep track of the days where this wasn't a running day, but I still did this physical activity and then be able to look back on it. And when you hit January, have an account of. Look at me. I ran through December. Look at me. I did it through December. It might not have looked the same as it did earlier in the year, but it shows the consistency. It shows your commitment to running. It shows that you are a runner.

Speaker: 42:33

Absolutely. And if you want more support, again, like I said, I would invite all of you to do this intentional mile challenge with us and tag us. Reach out. And if you want some more support, if you want coaches and you want a community and you want a daily plan, like we can create a plan for you that is not the plan that you normally follow, and that's totally okay. come over and check out the Real life Runners team. We've got. A great program called The 30 Day Reset. It is on sale right now, so that you can get in. It's going to help you give, it's gonna help give you little daily tasks that you can do throughout your day to help to reinforce this identity, to start to shift you out of this sympathetic mode. Help you. adopt this new identity of I am an athlete, I am a strong athlete. I don't just have to be perfect all the time. I can give myself grace and make a lot of progress in the process of all of this. So check all of that out over@realliferunners.com on that homepage. You've got different options. You can join the team, you can join the 30 Day Reset. you can obviously listen to the podcast and we'll always be here to support you on the podcast as well. If you haven't yet, leave us a review. Share us with a friend. Let's help more runners to start to let go of the perfectionism and start to embrace consistency and grace in this beautiful month of December. So as always, thanks for joining us. This has been The Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 438. Now, get out there and run your life.