Finding Motivation to Run

You manage to consistently come to parkrun (almost) every week?  Well done!  Do you struggle to find the motivation to run during the week, in between your parkruns, especially when the rising temperatures mean you come home looking more like you swam than ran?  You’re not the only one.

Claire Wyckoff, a runner from San Francisco, has popularized a solution to help runners find the motivation to exercise: draw running!

Using the herfitness tracking app, she runs different shapes and the results are incredible.

She gets her inspiration from films:

Slimer from Ghostbusters

From video games:

The Galaga spaceship

Alien from Atari game Space Invaders

from the news:

Representing Princess Leia after the death of Carrie Fisher

For International Womens’ Day

“The Birdcage” after the death of Robin Williams

or just from everyday life:

Birkenstock sandal

A corgi dog

Draw running (or walking) has many benefits.  It keeps our mind busy.  Rather than stressing about our performance, we’re concentrating on remembering the route that will create our intended drawing.  Rather than focusing on time, distance, pace and very often getting discouraged, we’re absorbed by our GPS piece of art while kilometres are adding up.

It’s also a great way to add variety to our training.  We all have one, two or maybe three regular routes that we walk or run over and over again.  Draw running forces us to take different itineraries and we end up discovering streets we’ve never been on before.   It can even make us run on different terrains as the perfect shape might require us to run across a green field rather than on a paved road or to run that steep hill we normally try to avoid.

Draw running helps us set different goals for ourselves and pushes us towards new objectives.  For example, the drawing that we want to run (or walk) may involve running (or walking) a longer distance than we normally do.  Finally, draw running combines all the numerous benefits of exercising with those of cognitive and creative activities.  So why not give it a try?

Whether you’re already an expert at draw running or whether you’re now inspired to start, we would love to see your masterpieces.  Get your running shoes on!  Let your feet become your pencil and your city your sketch book.  Stay active, be creative and connect-the-dot on a big scale!

Valerie Gendron

Frédéric Back parkrun Event Director