Running Training

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 316 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the leaner stronger Runner framework. Part three, why motivation isn’t the problem and what actually creates consistency. So in this episode I’m gonna be talking about the missing piece that oftentimes determines whether anything you’ve learned so far actually sticks.

Most runners think they need more motivation, more discipline, or more willpower, but if that were true, you’d already have the results that you want. The real issue is an effort. It’s the system you’re relying on to stay consistent. When life gets stressful or motivation fades, or things just don’t go perfectly.

So in this episode, I’m gonna break down why motivation always runs out, why starting over feels so normal for runners and what actually creates long-term consistency. Without burning yourself out. This is about identity, structure and learning how to trust yourself again, not about trying harder or being perfect, so if you’re tired of resetting and ready to build something that lasts.

This episode is gonna bring everything together for you here. Okay. So this is the final part of a short but powerful series. Um, and if you haven’t already listened to the first two parts of this series, go back and and do that now. This is part number three, and today we’re talking about the piece that determines whether everything you’ve learned so far.

Actually sticks or just kind of quietly fades away like it always has in the past. Okay. And what we’re talking about to today more than anything else is gonna be consistency. Okay. Not motivation, not discipline, not trying harder, or you know, trying to force more willpower onto the situation we’re talking about.

Consistency. If you’ve ever felt like you know what to do, but you still struggle to follow through on that. Or if you’ve ever started strong and then you kind of drift off track over time, um, or maybe you’ve wondered why you keep restarting all the time instead of, you know, keeping the momentum going.

Then this episode is going to be for you for sure, and I wanna say this very clearly, upfront, that motivation is not your problem. Okay? So for the three part series that I’m doing here, this is probably the most important one of the series. In part one I talked about training. You know, why doing more often makes things worse.

Um, in part two, I talked about fueling and why restriction often backfires for runners, and those are. Tactical problems. I mean, they’re, they’re real issues and everything like that, but they’re, they’re strategic problems. Okay? This episode is about a foundational problem, okay? Because you can have the perfect training plan.

You can know exactly what to eat. And you can understand everything intellectually and still fail to change. And it’s not because you’re lazy, you’re a runner. You stick to your trading plan. I know you’re not lazy. It’s not because you don’t care. I know you care. This stuff is important to you because you’re relying on the wrong mechanism that’s actually driving your behavior.

Okay, so most runners believe something like this. If I could just stay motivated, then everything would work perfectly for me. Okay? So they think, you know, I need, I need more discipline, I need to want it more, or I need to stop falling off track. And when things don’t work perfectly, they blame themselves.

They beat themselves up, okay? But the truth here is that motivation. Is an unreliable resource. Willpower is a finite resource, and if you have discipline, that’s great, but discipline without structure is just gonna lead to confusion and eventually burnout. Okay, so motivation spikes. Sometimes you feel super motivated to do stuff, but then it fades and it, it will always fade.

Okay? When motivation fades, a lot of runners are thinking. You know, it must be me. Something is wrong with me. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with you, okay? I wanna talk about what is actually happening here, okay? ’cause runners and the people that I work with, and the people that I talk to every single day.

Oh, you guys are great at starting things. Okay, you got a new training plan. You got this new race that you signed up for, or maybe it’s a new distance. Instead of like a A 10 K, you’re going for a half marathon. Instead of a half marathon, you’re gonna train for that new marathon. You got a new goal. I’m gonna PR this time.

And you have this newfound motivation. And the first few weeks of this always feel pretty amazing, right? You’re focused. You’re super energized. Uh, you’re doing all the right things, okay? And then something happens. Life shows up, you get stressed out about work, uh, family stuff. Um, maybe you’re not sleeping well.

The weather turns super bad. You miss a run or two. You skip a workout, you eat off your meal plan, and instead of just adjusting and course correcting or pivoting or whatever you need to do, you’re like, I’m off track. Uh, and, and you try to snap back harder. Like you just try to, you know, force more energy into the situation.

Um, doesn’t really work right. Or a lot of people I talk to, they tell me that over time they just quietly give up. Right. They just lose that motivation and that’s it. They’re done. And then their, their idea is that they’re gonna restart later. Okay. And they’re going to, you know, pick it up again in a few weeks or a month, or when things calm down, or when you’re not stressed, or when you’re sleeping better, or when the weather turns different, or when the kids are outta school or whatever the thing is.

Right? And it’s not about, you know, being inconsistent or not caring or anything like that. It’s just you’re relying on a very fragile structure. So most runners have a plan. That assumes a few things. That assumes perfect weeks, like everything’s gonna go perfectly all the time. How’s that working out for you?

Your most plans assume some sort of high motivation factor, like you’re always gonna feel like. Doing the speed work or doing the long run in the rain, or the snow, or the wind or, or you know, a combination of all those things. Uh, most plans assume no stress and, uh, no setbacks at all, but that’s not reality.

Okay. ’cause real life is not perfect. It’s messy. Training is imperfect. Your energy levels fluctuates. Um, mo motivation comes and goes, right? And if your plan only works, when everything is perfect and everything is going right, it’s not going to work okay? It’s just not so one of the most important concepts.

That I wanna share with you in this episode is this id, this idea of identity versus behavior. Okay? ’cause most runners try to change their behavior. Their actions, what they’re doing without changing their identity. You know who they are at their core or how they see themselves at their core. So someone might say like, I’m trying to lose weight, or I’m trying to be more consistent, or I’m trying to eat better, and this is all very fragile.

Okay, because trying depends on mood. It depends on your motivation, it depends on circumstances, and, and again, it assumes everything is going perfect. Identity is different. Identity is who you are at your core or how you see yourself. So identity is. Usually it’s everything that follows the words I am.

Okay, so identity sounds like. You know, this is how I train now. This is who I am. This is how I eat now. This is who I am. This is how I take care of myself. This is just what I do because this is who I am. So identity removes the questioning of the decision. It removes the negotiation with yourself. Right, because if this is who you are and this is how you train, this is who you are, this is how you eat, there is no question, there’s no decision to be made there.

Do you see how much more powerful that is than just trying to change the behavior? I’m going to try to eat better, versus this is how I eat. You know, I eat like an athlete because I am an athlete. That’s very, very powerful and it’s an empowering statement, and it’s taking that, that power that you have about decision making about.

Uh, behavior about, you know, shifting and transforming yourself and improving yourself, and it’s putting it all on you, which is the good news end, the bad news. Because guess what? It’s all on you, but you know what, it’s all on you. Um, so when you’re, when you’re saying like, I’m trying to do this, uh, that’s very weak.

It’s a very fragile, it’s a very, um, disempowering statement to make. Okay. Instead, start thinking in terms of shifting your identity into, Hey, I’m an athlete. I train like an athlete. I eat like an athlete. I, uh, run like an athlete. Okay? So it removes the negotiation when you start shifting your identity.

Now a lot of runners I talk to, they, they, uh, haven’t got this part dialed in yet, and they end up, uh, starting over a lot. And runners are very good at starting over. In fact, they’re so good at it that it feels normal to them. Like every Monday they have to start over with their diet. Um. You know, uh, uh, I’m gonna start my new training plan on Monday, or, you know, my motivation hopefully will come back on Monday.

Uh, so new plans, new motivation. Hopefully they make new promises to themselves. They’re just starting over constantly. Um, stopping and starting over, stopping and starting over, and it feels. Productive. It feels like you’re doing something good. It feels hopeful. It’s a way of kind of exerting some control over the situation.

If you’re constantly starting over, then you’re constantly feeling that initial surge of motivation. Right. But starting over is also a sign that nothing was built, nothing was established, you didn’t create some momentum, um, and you didn’t really fail. It’s just like you didn’t, you didn’t give it long enough to actually, you know, um, have legs.

Okay, so you didn’t give it, uh, uh, enough time to where it could become stable and create that momentum. It’s kind of like. Uh, the plane takes off, right? There’s a lot of energy required to get that plane off the ground, but once it’s off the ground, you get some momentum going and you can just get up to cruising altitude and you can just, uh, glide almost.

You could turn off those engines. You could fly for quite a long time, or you don’t need as much energy once you’re, uh, in that, uh, gliding mode, you know, once you’re up at altitude. But. So many people give up before they get to that place. They love the surge, they love the, uh, energy and that motivation that comes at the beginning of something and, and they like starting over constantly subconsciously.

It’s not something they’re super consciously aware of. They’re like, why do I keep starting over? But underneath the surface, they kind of enjoy it. Maybe they’re a little addicted to that adrenaline, you know, of constantly having to start over again. Okay. And listen, I’m not talking about being perfect here.

This is where a lot of people, um, get this wrong or they, they misunderstand. They think that being consistent means never missing a workout or never overeating, or never sneaking a cookie or a cupcake. Never getting tired, never falling off track. That is not consistency. That’s perfectionism. You know, and perfectionism is.

Not based in reality, let’s be honest. Okay. When I’m talking about consistency, it looks like this. It means that, you know, maybe you fall off track a little bit, but you return quickly, like you course correct quickly, you adjust instead of. Quit like in, instead of giving up and starting over, you make a course correction, you adjust.

You’re staying in the processed, right, you’re staying in the process of training, in the process of, uh, making a food plan, whatever that looks like for you, and you are making the next best decision. You always tell people, um, don’t, don’t miss two workouts in a row. Don’t have two bad meals in a row. In other words, if you eat off plan.

At the very next meal, get back on track. If you miss a workout, don’t worry about it. Stuff happens. Sometimes we get sick or you know, the kids were demanding your attention or you had to, um, deal with some work stuff and you miss a work. Okay? No, no problem. Don’t worry about it. Just next workout, you’re back on track.

Don’t miss that second workout. Okay? Consistency is about. Continuity, not perfect compliance. All right? There’s no such thing as perfection. Nobody’s gonna do this stuff perfectly. So let’s talk a little bit about some emotions, because this is where a lot of runners, um, get themselves stuck because they, they get emotional about some things and.

We have to, we have to address this, okay. And talk about it. A lot of coaches out there aren’t really talking about this stuff, okay? And this is kind of subtle, but it’s very important, okay? Most runners, uh, their decisions are not super logical. They are emotional. Alright? You don’t skip a run because you decided to, you didn’t make that decision.

You skipped it because you were overwhelmed or stressed or tired, or something got in the way. You didn’t overeat because you’re careless. Uh, you overate because your nervous system is fried for whatever reason. Okay? If your plan doesn’t account for emotions, it will fail. And when I’m talking about emotions, I’m talking about things like stress and overwhelm and frustration and anxiety and boredom.

Is an emotion. Um, fear, uh, these are all emotions, sadness, grief. Um, these are all the kinds of emotions that drive us to, uh, go off our plan, that drive us to engage in behaviors that maybe aren’t aligned with our long-term goals. Okay. Um, so we have to understand that emotions are part of the process and that it’s okay.

To feel these things, it’s okay to, um, you know, have some sadness because something happened or to be stressed out. Like it’s okay that you’re stressed out. It doesn’t mean you have to give up the ship just because you’re a little stressed out. Okay. Okay. I wanna talk a little bit about willpower. ’cause a lot of people think that they just need to exert more willpower to fix a situation.

Willpower is a finite resource. Okay? It works when you’re rested, when you’re calm, when you’re motivated. Um, but it’s a, it’s a tank that’s kind of full at the beginning of the day. By the end of the day, it’s. It can be empty, right? Because you get stressed out, you get tired, you get overwhelmed, stuff is going on in your life, and by the end of the day, your willpower tank is drained.

Okay? So if your entire plan is relying on willpower, as soon as things start to happen, it’s going to dissipate. And, and things are going to get difficult for you, okay? It’s not a weakness, it’s biology. This is why so many people do well during the day as far as their eating plan goes. You know, they, they stick to their plan, they’re great, and then later in the evening they blow it.

Can you relate to that? I used to do this all the time, and I can’t tell you how many people. Tell me this, that, oh, I did great during the day, but it’s at night. When I, when I struggle. It’s because you’re relying on willpower, not structure, not a system. You’re relying on willpower. It’s a finite resource.

By the end of the day, it’s gone, and that’s why you eat chocolate cake for dinner. Okay, so when I talk about structure. I’m talking about the kind of structure that creates freedom for you. Like we hear structure and we think, you know, rigid and, um, controlled and you know, very, um, narrow focus, but structure can create a ton of freedom for you.

Okay? There’s a shift in your mindset that I need you to make here, okay? And this is to stop trying to be more disciplined and start building. Better structure. Structure removes that decision fatigue that I talked about. You know, it removes, or I’m sorry, it creates pre predictability, right? Structure creates something that is reliable and predictable, and this is very important.

Structure makes consistency feel automatic, right? You probably don’t rely on motivation to brush your teeth every day. You just do it. Why? Because you have a structure in place. Um, you know, you get up in the morning, maybe you eat your breakfast, you brush your teeth, then you go to work. You’re not leaving the house without brushing your teeth, right?

That’s what I mean by structure. Okay? You’re not, you’re not disciplined because you brush your teeth every day, right? You’re not motivated to brush your teeth. You’re not relying on willpower to brush your teeth. You do it because that’s what you do, right? You’re the kind of person, again, we’re talking about identity here.

You’re the kind of person who brushes their teeth before they leave the house. And I appreciate that. I think we all do. I hope everybody’s that kind of person. Um, but our training and our nutrition plans should work the same way. We wanna have that same kind of structure in place around strength training, around our, our running and around nutrition.

So when runners finally get this part right, they say things like, you know, I don’t stress about food anymore. I just do what I do. It feels easier. Everything feels, um, you know, just much calmer. And I don’t feel like I’m constantly starting over or, or trying to figure out what to do. Right? And it’s not because they’re more disciplined or they have more willpower, it’s because they removed all the friction.

And that structure, uh, helps to do that. It removes that friction. Okay. And something that a lot of people I talk to, they don’t really want to admit, but it’s true. They don’t really trust themselves. Okay? ’cause they’ve quit before. They’ve fallen off track. They’ve restarted too many times and they’re constantly waiting for that other shoe to drop.

Okay? And what happens is they make a promise to themselves. They don’t keep that promise to themselves, and then they beat themselves up and they, and they break down the trust they have in themselves. And if you keep repeating the cycle over and over and over, you basically cannot trust yourself any longer because subconsciously you’re telling yourself.

I cannot rely on myself. I know I said I was gonna do X, Y, and Z instead. I didn’t. And you would never, I hope anyway. You would never do that to a family member or a friend. Constantly tell them you’re gonna do something and then not follow through on it. Like, think about that with your partner or uh, somebody at work.

Maybe you’re not gonna tell somebody you’re gonna do something and constantly. Uh, fail on that or let them down because you know, that’s gonna break down the trust in that relationship and they’re not going to wanna be friends with you anymore or married to you or whatever it is. Okay. So we do it to ourselves though all the time, right?

We break down that trust in ourselves, right? And that lack of self-trust creates a lot of anxiety, internal anxiety, internal turmoil, and this creates burnout really, because you’re constantly sort of stressing yourself out. Okay? Instead, we want to keep. The promises we make to ourselves. We make a plan.

We stick to the plan. We build a little self-trust. We make a plan, we stick to the plan. We build more self-trust. Keep doing this, and you build tons of trust in yourself. You build confidence, you recover quickly from mistakes. You stop making rules that you can’t keep, like you do what you say you’re gonna do.

And this is built through tiny little wins, not big giant promises that you make to yourself. It’s built through daily repetitions. You gotta get your daily reps in, okay? A lot of small, little, you know, commitments that you keep to yourself. They add up over time. And I’m telling you all of this because this is why the leaner, stronger runner framework actually works.

Not because it’s extreme, not because it’s rigid, not because it demands perfection, but because it’s designed for real runners with real lives who have real stress and experience real setbacks. It assumes imperfection and it survives it. Now when I talk about structure, again, I’m not talking about rigidity, right?

I don’t mean rules that make your life harder, and I definitely don’t mean some perfect plan. You follow until the first thing that happens that blows everything up for you. Okay? I mean, simple guardrails that remove decision making and keep you moving forward even when life gets in the way or motivation is low.

So I’m gonna give you a couple of examples of what structure can look like, things that you can put into practice starting today. Okay. The first is a default training week, right? We’re gonna take the guesswork out of this one. Okay? And one of the biggest mistakes that runners make is deciding what they’re going to do every single day.

That is exhausting. Okay. Structure instead looks like having a default week, uh, not a perfect week, but a default week that you can always fall back on, um, or at least something you can use as a template. So, for example, these are my run days. These are my non-running days. This is when I do my strength training, and these are my recovery days.

Okay? Even if your mileage changes, even if the intensity changes, your training, whatever, the framework stays the same. So when life gets busy, you don’t think, oh, what should I do today? You already know it’s written down. Okay, you have a, a default training week. It’s penned in ink and it’s non-negotiable.

Okay? Um, and you just execute the plan to the best of your ability. Okay? Again, you may not do it perfectly. Stuff gets in the way sometimes, but have a default training week. Um, number two. Is having a non-negotiable minimum? This one is huge. Most runners think consistency means doing everything exactly as they planned.

It does not. Consistency means knowing that your minimum standard, the smallest version of the habit that you’re trying to establish still counts. Okay. For example, if a full run feels like too much. The minimum might be 20 easy minutes. Okay. If a full strength session feels overwhelming to you or you don’t have time, the minimum might be, you know, one circuit.

You know, one full body circuit takes you 15 minutes. If your nutrition feels off, the minimum might be three solid meals instead of, oh, I’m just gonna start over tomorrow. Okay. Again, having a non-negotiable minimum prevents the all or nothing trap. Okay? ’cause you’re never quite off track. You’re just operating at the minimum, and that still counts, and it still builds trust and confidence in yourself.

Okay, and then number three, a simple food framework, right? Not daily decisions about food. That’s a recipe for disaster right there. I’m telling you right now, you need structure around food. And it doesn’t mean eating the same thing every single day. It means removing that daily negotiation, for example, um, getting protein in every meal.

Eating regularly, you know, at regular times instead of just eating whenever you feel like it or eating reactively, you know, because you’ve had a stressful day, um, fueling your training days intentionally stop trying to make up for what you did yesterday, right? When food decisions are made in advance, stress goes down, consistency goes up.

You’re not relying on willpower, you’re relying on the plan that you put in place. Number four, having a reset rule instead of constantly starting over. Okay, this one might be the most important one. Structure includes a reset rule, a rule that says if I miss a workout, I’m not going to punish myself. I just get back on track.

If I overeat, I don’t restrict myself. I don’t try to make it up. I just normalize what I’m doing again. Or if a week kind of gets outta control, things go a little bit sideways. I don’t quit. I just simply come back to home base. I reset. Right? No drama. No guilt, no restarting from scratch. You simply return back to your structure and this is how consistency is built over time and, and if you have a reset rule in place, this might be the most important thing that you can do starting today.

Get this in place because you are going to have setbacks. You’re going to fall off your plan. You’re going to eat the chocolate cake for dinner or whatever that looks like for you. And if you beat yourself up and you have to start all over again, every time that happens. You break down the trust, you break down the confidence, you don’t get the results that you want.

Um, you end up quitting and we don’t wanna do any of that stuff, okay? We wanna get back to normal and start building that consistency. Okay? Again, consistency is not perfection. Okay. And then number five, tracking consistency, not perfection. Okay. Finally, structure means tracking the right thing, not your scale weight every single day, or perfect weeks or flawless execution.

Um, maybe tracking things like how often did I return back to normal? Um, did I follow the structure more than I didn’t, you know, did I, did I hit like a, a a b plus instead of an a plus? Um, did I get, you know, 25 out of 31 days where I stayed on track? Um. Am I building momentum instead of stopping and then starting over all the time?

Because this stuff actually matters. This is what’s actually going to move the needle for you. Okay? So that’s what structure can look like for you. Um, and again, these are just examples, but I’ll, I’ll recap these really quickly. One, a default training week instead of guessing two, a non-negotiable minimum.

Uh, three, a simple food framework for a reset rule instead of starting over. And then five, tracking consistency, not perfection. Okay, now here’s the important part. These examples work, but they’re, they work best when they’re part of a complete system, okay? So when training, nutrition and mindset are all structured together, consistency stops feeling like something you have to force.

It just becomes something you do, okay? Again, it becomes part of your identity. This is who I am, this is what I do, and that’s exactly what the Leaner, stronger Runner Project is designed to give you. So I wanna zoom out a little bit here. Um, in part one of this series, you learned how to train without breaking yourself down.

Uh, part two, you learn how to eat without fighting your bio, your, uh, body and your biology. And in part three here today, you learn how to stay consistent without relying on motivation. This is the system. It’s not a bunch of hacks or shortcuts or, you know, contests to see how disciplined you are. It’s a framework.

That actually works with you. Okay. If you’ve listened all the way through to this part of the episode. I want you to hit pause for just a second. Okay. Because getting to the end here tells me something important about you. You care. You want this to work. You’re tired of starting over. You’ve probably tried pushing harder.

You’ve probably tried being more disciplined. You’ve probably tried relying on motivation to carry you through and now. You know the truth, motivation isn’t the problem. You don’t need more willpower. There’s nothing wrong with you, okay? What’s been missing is structure a system one that works in real life, not just on perfect weeks, okay?

And that’s exactly why I created the Leaner, stronger Runner project, right? It’s not about grinding more being perfect, it’s about having a clear framework for how you train. How you eat and how you stay consistent, especially when life gets busy, stressful, or unpredictable, because it always will. It’s all about building strength without breaking yourself down, fueling in a way that supports your recovery instead of fighting your body and your biology, and it’s finally trusting yourself to be able to follow through.

Okay, so if you’re ready to stop resetting and you wanna start building something that actually lasts. Go to running lean coaching.com/ready, okay? That’s where everything you’ve learned in this series all comes together. Okay? That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.