Introducing the No Plan Run

Ever wished running could feel somewhat easier?

Find it hard to run for longer?

I might have a solution for you!

It's called the No Plan Run.

The no plan run is where you go out and instead of thinking about how far to go or how fast to go, you let your body decide.

There's nothing I love more than going out for a long run, getting lost in my thoughts, enjoy my surroundings and feeling at peace with the world. When your runs feel like that, it's pure magic.

Having said that, I also get the runs where I've tried to summon up the motivation to go out, no idea where to run or how far, then I began letting my legs decide where they wanted to take me. This is a really weird yet wonderful experience as I've often thought about going one place and ended up going somewhere completely different.

Letting The Body Decide

Lately, I've also let my body decide on how hard it wants to work. This is fascinating as sometimes my body will want to push hard, really go for it. Other times, it likes to take it easy. Both are good.

It all comes down to tuning into how you feel when you run and listening to your body. This is something I've been doing for a few years now and is how I coach the runners I work with. When I started my 0-5k group nearly 20 years ago, I always felt Couch to 5k took way longer than it needed to and began encouraging runners to tune into how they felt rather than run timed intervals. First, you decide how you want your run to feel then go practice it.

I've always believed that running, and exercise in general, should be enjoyable so people feel like they want to go do it again. By focusing solely on making your running feel enjoyable, I noticed my group became able to go from 0-5k in as little as 4 weeks. With the regular runners I work with, they've all become slaves to their watches, focusing on pace and trying to run faster each time. By encouraging them to focus on making their running feel enjoyable, they slowed down but over time, began to run faster almost without trying.

By tuning into how you feel and allowing your body to decide how hard it wants to work, you also recover quicker. If you're tired, running harder will only delay your body's ability to produce another decent effort and risk injury.

Magical Mystery Tour

The beauty of letting your legs decide where they want to take you and your body decide on how hard it wants to work, it becomes something of a magical mystery tour where even you don't know where you end up going or how far you end up running. Sometimes it can be a short distance, fast, sometimes a hilly run, sometimes an easy run, usually to do with the kind of view I'd get to see.

Take Sunday there, I rested all last week as I felt tired and I was in two minds about going out. I decided I needed to go out as I've got a race coming up this weekend and needed to do something. I had an idea to run into town, along by the river, around the park then home, giving me around 6 miles. When I got closer to the river, I felt inspired to cross one bridge, go along then back over the other bridge and onto the park. When I got to the park, I felt inspired to run further along the riverside and got to a point where I knew if I was going to turn and run back the way I came, I'd need to do that soon. I kept on going.

By the time I followed the paths I felt inspired to run along, that would see me complete a big loop around Perth, my 6 mile run turned into 11 miles! The pace was easy as my body didn't feel like it and the route was fairly flat.

I would never have considered running 11 miles before I went out the door but by taking it easy and allowing my body decide on what it wanted to do, I felt like I was able to keep on adding little bits here and there, never feeling exhausted.

The beauty of this kind of run is that the distance, the intensity and the view will change every time but you will always finish feeling good, like you've accomplished something pretty special, like you've done more than you thought you could every time.

The No Plan Run has transformed my running and it could transform yours.

Next time you run, let your body decide where it wants to go and how hard it wants to work and see what happens. Let me know how you get on :-)