If you see the park, you run the park.

In the infancy of my running life (yeah, yeah, we're talking last year here, people. But I'm now a toddler-runner, thankyouverymuch), I was following a friend on Instagram who was an avid runner and working towards some goals as she approached a milestone birthday.  I quickly noticed that she was posting a lot of photos of stairs. She shared that at some point in her running, she had called "NEW RULE!" and decided that every time she saw stairs while on a run, she would go to them and climb.  "If you see the Stairs, you run the Stairs." Some days her Insta-posts were super upbeat and enjoyed the view from the top, some days she cursed herself for ever making the rule. But either way, she made the rule and she climbed the stairs. I respected that and wondered if maybe I should get into stair climbing on my runs…

I have yet to embrace the stairs. Remember, I'm a toddler? The gates on the stairs are still up for safety.

But I DID embrace her mindset and one day, after running the same set route in my 'hood that I'd become really comfortable with, I approached a park and thought, "I'll just run a lap around this park to slowly increase my route distance." BOOM!  Instantaneously I realized THAT would be my new rule!"If you see the Park, you run the Park."  I live in a town with small neighborhood parks and large school playgrounds every few blocks so for me this could be ambitious. But I quickly realized that when 2 miles started to feel strong, but the leap to 3 miles would be too much too soon, I'd just add a couple park laps and then carry on my way. It was a simple and effective way to add .3 or .5 miles to a run without going off course or farther from home.  It made me feel safe to add a little distance on my runs.

Some days its a bit of a game too… "I want to run down THIS street, BUT theres a park on it…hmmm…" You find yourself making route decisions more carefully sometimes. But you also find great distractions in parks!  The lap around can be filled with watching the kids on the playground or a dog enjoying a game of fetch.  Before you know it your lap is done and the time passed much quicker than it would have on a quiet block that you've run a million times.

So if you're looking to increase distance, take my rule and make it your own!  If thats not your goal, take some time to identify what next steps you're looking to take and when you figure it out, be sure to call "NEW RULE!"