Every day it gets a bit easier. But that's the key. You have to do it every day.

- weird monkey from Bojack Horseman, paraphrased through my memory

I loved that scene too, but something I wish I knew before I started my running/fitness journey is that, every day it does NOT get easier.

You are going to have bad days.

I remember running 3 miles and feeling great, and then trying the same run a few days later and feeling like crap - gassed myself half a mile in and either couldn't finish or finished at half the pace. I would get frustrated, wonder if I was even making progress, etc. In reality your progress is going to look like a stock price. Some up days, some down days, some very up and some VERY down days (or weeks or months) but over time the line WILL go up and to the right. I once apologized to my fitness instructor that I half-assed his workout that day. He just shrugged and said, "Eh, not every day's Christmas." I think about that a lot now. But yes, going out for a shitty run still counts as a run, and you have to frame your mind around how big of a success that was. You make the most progress on the days you have to fight the hardest and the days you break some speed or distance PR, the gains are minimal at best and destructive at worst.

Happy running everybody.

	▲	scubbo 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's a classic "annoyingly-misleading wise-sounding statement", because there's an interpretation - which I think is the intended one - which _is_ correct; "every day [that you do it] it gets easier [than it would have been, ceteris paribus, if you hadn't done it that day]". So, on that down day where you get what feels like a bad result, you still got a better result ("it was easier") than if you _hadn't_ have trained the day before. Your environmental factors were pulling you down, but your accumulated training counteracted that. Your bad days are better than they would otherwise have been. But that's not as snappy for a cartoon monkey to say.
	▲	thewebguyd 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> every day it does NOT get easier. This was important for me to realize too when I started my journey, both strength training and cycling. For cycling in particular I like to use the anecdote "It never gets easier, you just get faster." It's hard, and will always be hard, but seeing and feeling the results, beating my PRs, etc. keep me going, and also celebrating the small wins. Some days, just committing to going to the gym and picking up the weights is a big accomplishment and you should absolutely celebrate it.

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shpongled 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"It doesn't get any easier, you just get faster"

- Greg LeMond

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igouy 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No it often gets harder because stuff-happens.

No we often need days-off to rebuild.