Rewards, there are many kinds, but they have a few things in common. They feel great, keep you motivated and help you focus on your goal. I’ve noticed when training for the Nike Human Race (over 200 miles now) that rewards, tracking my progress and trying to add a little adventure into the mix keeps things interesting.

Traveling this week to LA, I specifically chose a hotel that was 1.4 miles from the Equinox gym in Westwood. The theory here is that I could do a short warm-up run, work out at the gym grab a snack and be back at the hotel in time to make it to my first meeting on Tuesday morning. It worked beautifully. The gym is one of those tri-level jobs with all the right equipment and full of people in better shape than me. A great way to keep motivated is to surround yourself with folks who are headed in the same direction (or are already there). In this case the reward was having a plan and following it in spite of a very tough travel schedule.

Also in the rewards department, I treated a couple of friends to a steak dinner on the Patio of a wonderful restaurant called BLT on Sunset Boulevard. Now this is the other kind of reward. Let’s call it negative reinforcement. Experience tells me that the, “eating whatever you want if you are exercising theory,” is just that a theory. This is especially true of folks like me who are dangerously close to being in their 40’s. So, the next morning, reflecting on the gluttony of the night before, I headed to the gym, ran 5 miles on the treadmill and spent the rest of the time at the gym doing crunches and push-ups.

So rewards, whether the positive or negative variety, are important. Like most things, it’s the balance between the two that allows you to make progress. Until next time…

Gotta keep running!