How I succeeded in running 40 minutes three times a week

I had always failed to get into the habit of going for a run.

As some of you already know, I have started a sabbatical year. I have made this decision for many reasons. One of the most important is to start prioritizing my physical health. Recently, I have achieved a significant milestone in this goal: running for 40 minutes without stopping. In fact, it’s even more incredible: I am now in the habit of going for a 40-minute run three times a week!

I have achieved this because I have prepared the following three things: my motivation, my technique, and my training plan. In other words, the «prepare the preparation» mindset is what has led me to success.

The goal of this article is to:

• show you my journey to achieving this milestone.
• explain to you how «preparing the preparation» makes it easier to succeed
• celebrate with you this milestone in my life :-)

A solid motivation to go running

In the past, my motivation to go running was not solid. I wanted to go running because I understood it was a way to get fit. However, there wasn’t much more thought than that.

Now, my motivation is not to go running. My main motivation is to have good physical health. But why do I want this? I want to have good physical health because I know it’s fundamental to:

• being able to think correctly and deeply
• live longer and better
• have the physical capacity to help others.

So how can I be in good physical health?

According to the Outlive¹ book by Peter Attia, you must take care of many different aspects (e.g., exercise, nutrition, rest, etc.). One of the things he recommends doing is Zone 2 training. In my case, the ideal way to do this training is to go running.

So, this is my current motivation:

1. I want to have good physical health.
2. Zone 2 training is necessary to have good health.
3. Going for a run is my ideal form of Zone 2 training.

This motivation has much more body: it is solid.

The proper technique (Zone 2 training)

In the past, I didn’t worry about technique. I would simply run an amount of time at a speed that I felt was adequate. However, having poor technique, at best, keeps you from progressing toward your goal. And, at worst, it is a source of injury.

So, once I defined my new motivation, I needed to ensure I was using the proper technique. In this case, I needed to learn the technique of Zone 2 training.

After reading Outlive, it was more or less clear to me how the technique worked. However, that «more or less clear» was not enough for me: I wanted to become as soon as possible proficient in this technique, to become unconsciously skilled. To achieve this, I processed the chapter on Zone 2 training using the Zettelkasten method.

There are more technical elements that are necessary to accomplish this goal without injuring myself. For example:

• What shoes should I wear?
• What warm-up and cool-down should I do?
• What running technique should I use?

However, I decided not to process these questions with my Zettelkasten and conform with my current knowledge. In fact, if I had decided to «process everything», I would still be processing ideas and would not have gone out for a run yet.

A realistic training plan

According to Outlive, the goal is to do four 45-minute Zone 2 training sessions per week. If I had set out from the beginning to run 45 minutes four times a week, I would have failed without a doubt. I didn’t have the physical ability or discipline to achieve this goal.

Therefore, I needed a way to reach that end goal. In other words, I needed a realistic and gradual training plan that would allow me to reach the end goal without losing motivation or getting injured.

Peter Attia also explains how to make this training plan (although in a somewhat superficial way). So, I decided to process these tips with my Zettelkasten to maximize the chances of it being a good training plan.

The resulting plan can be summarized in two steps:

1. Start with a small but non-trivial training goal. For example, I started by going out for a 10-minute run three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

2. When you meet that goal comfortably, gradually increase the difficulty. For example, when I could run 10 minutes with no problem, I moved up to running 20 minutes.

How was the result?

The first few days were difficult. I couldn’t run for 10 minutes without stopping. The two most significant difficulties were:

• My physical capacity was worse than I expected.
• I couldn’t stay within Zone 2 (I was overexerting myself).

However, it only took me a few sessions to control the intensity (thanks to my previous work with my Zettelkasten). From then on, the workouts became much easier, even though I gradually increased the time.

After three months, I reached the 40-minute mark.

And the rest is history :-)

Conclusion: Prepare the preparation

I feel that—once I had solid motivation, knew the proper technique, and had a realistic training plan—getting to where I am today was only a matter of time: it was inevitable.

So, I don’t think this achievement was thanks to my willpower or discipline. The really important step was to prepare everything I needed to succeed.

The extraordinary thing was «preparing the preparation».

The «prepare the preparation» mindset can be applied in many aspects of your life, and, in particular, it works very well with creative work. If you prepare all the steps prior to a creative execution— the motivation, technique, plan of action, inspiration, state of mind, resources, etc.—, the difficulty of the execution is reduced so much that, in many cases, it becomes inevitable.

And you, do you prepare the preparation?

You can answer me in the comments or directly to this email. In both cases, I will get back to you :-)

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