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Before July 2018, I never ran a mile consecutively, or I didn’t remember ever running a mile in my life (I am sure I had but never recorded it). 

So when my friend asked if I wanted to run a 5K with his church group, I was initially taken aback.

After a quick Google search, I found that a 5K is slightly more than 3 miles, or 3.107 miles. For someone who had never run a 1.60K before, it was anything but a piece of cake.

Predictably, my limiting belief started to creep in, and I started finding excuses to not sign up, “what if my light asthma acted up?” “What if his church friends were much faster than me,” etc. etc. 

I don’t exactly remember how long I took me to decide, but I just met his friends a couple of weeks prior and I thought the 5K would be a nice bonding experience. 

Plus, 5K sounded like a reasonable challenge for someone who never ran before. Everyone talks about how easy a 5k is.

My friend also said, “What is there to lose? You still would have worked out anyways.” Therefore, I bit the bullet and signed up, about 1.5 months before the actual run.

Once the sound of clicking “submit payment” subsided on my ears, I realized I couldn’t embarrass myself in front of my potential new friends. The stress crept in and I started researching and analyzing how to run…..? 

What did I eventually come up with?

1. What was the reasonable amount of time to complete a 5K? While male runners could complete under 17 minutes, 30 minutes was reasonable for first time runners. Without overthinking too much, I decided that 30 minutes would be a reasonable range.
2. How often should I train? Since I was just getting into running, I didn’t want to train everyday, so I decided to run on the treadmill when I worked out at the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays and to ran on an actual track on Saturdays.
3. What would be my running routine? Joe Saul-Sehy, the host of the Stacking Benjamin podcast, trained for a marathon by joining a running club. In the running club, the runners would rotate running a mile then walking a mile, similar to the previous theme of not stressing my body.
4. What tracking method would I use? I realized that I only needed something very simple and I picked Runtastic.
5. I also didn’t want to run alone so I invited the friend that invited me to the 5K to run with me. He could only showed up one weekend but I had Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Kanye West, and other artists running with me. If I was feeling educational, I had Paula Pant with me as well. 

The first time I stepped onto the track I was scared. I was afraid I couldn’t run a mile. 1 mile was approximately 4 laps on the track, and I remember that by the third lap my lung started burning and I didn’t know I could finish.

I did complete it, at about 10 minutes. And besides grasping for air, I knew I had a chance to complete, because at that moment I became a runner by running.

Over the next few weeks I would run three times a week as I set out, on a rotation (run a mile, walk a mile), and I tracked my progress as I improved over time. My time went down from 10 minutes to 7 minutes and 45 seconds at my best. 

Every time my time dropped I gave myself a mental high-five, and, well, shared it on Facebook. 

About 3 weeks in, I became antsy and decided to challenge myself by completing the 5K. Well, I did it under 30 minutes but at a great cost. 

My back started to hurt which knocked me out for a week. What was my learning lesson – I needed to stretch, before and after.

Once I was back to full speed from the injury I had less than two weeks left. I also ran more gingerly because I was afraid of another injury.

I was definitely frustrated because I was afraid I couldn’t complete it under 30 minutes. 

But I could only worry so much, I had to keep reminding myself that this would be my first 5K. I hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. I just kept my same running routine. 

On a drizzly, warm day in early September, I completed my 5K in……

 

 

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28 minutes and 39 seconds.

 

This was not a great number by any stretch, but when I was struggling upward in one of the hills, I certainly wasn’t thinking about getting my time under 30 minutes. 

I was only thinking, “would my lung explode?” and I was pleasantly surprised that I did.

The funny thing was, no one, including my friend, trained for the 5K. Many walked the 5K. In an effort to not embarrass myself, I ended up impressing myself. 

You may ask, “Isn’t this a personal finance blog?” Yes it is, and hear me out.

You may never think of yourself as someone who could be interested in personal finance. I certainly didn’t think I could be a runner, but with a few simple steps below, some mindset change and actions, I ran a 5K.

Set Reasonable Expectation

• I didn’t care to complete a 5K under 20 mins because I wasn’t very light for my size, never ran consistently, had only one month to train. Setting expectation to 30 mins allowed me to focus on getting in the habit of running.
• Just as I wrote on my previous blog post, you shouldn’t expect to be a millionaire within a short amount of time if you earn an average salary in the US. However, if you take the necessary step, save $10K to $20K per year by either increasing your salary or decreasing your expenses, you could set yourself up to saving $100K within a decade.

Break it in Small Chunks.

• Just as I didn’t run a 5K every time I practiced, you shouldn’t try to do everything at once. The one time I decided to run a full 5K before I was ready, I got injured 🙁 . 
• If you never saved anything before and want to save $1k, why don’t you start with 5 dollars per day? In 200 days you will have $1K more in your savings than you did before.

Track, Then Make Small Incremental Improvement.

• My time per mile over time improved from 10 minutes per mile to 7:40 per miles by saving 10 – 20 seconds every weekend. But if I didn’t track I couldn’t improve it. 
• Using the same example above, if you increase your dollar amount by 5% every thirty days, you can save $3,158 in 200 days.
• While I do not share my net worth figures, I have seen it improve dramatically since I tracked it.
• James Clear, who recently published his first book Atomic Habit, improved his weight loss, strength training, and relationship by tracking past actions and improving them by a small percentage every time.

Celebrate the Small Wins!

• I celebrated every small improvement. I didn’t go slamming beers and shots, but I smiled and told myself, “I can do it.”
• That’s why at the FB group that I admin, I post “What are you doing this week to get closer to FI?” every Monday and I post, “Did you complete what you set out to do this week to get closer to FI? every Friday. Members ask me often, “What would constitute a FI win?”
  • Depending on where you are at your journey, it could be educating yourself by reading a book or listening to a podcast, sharing your wins by coming to the monthly meetups, or starting to track your finances, or finding a side hustles to grow your income. Educate, then take action. 

Decide

• I am habitual over-analyzer (see About the Blogger, it is an occupational hazard). For the sake of your sanity, I didn’t belabor the length of time before I decided on the reasonable amount of time to complete a 5k, how often should I train etc. etc. but deciding to run a 5K set off a series of decisions, and decisions freed up my mind from over-analyzing. 
• Setting reasonable expectation also helped because I could ease into my routines and lower the psychological costs of failing.

Start by Doing

• I never thought of myself as a runner before, but from the very act of running, I became a runner.
• You may not be a saver before, but by setting aside a few dollars per day for your piggy bank, your mattress, savings account at your local bank or online bank such as Marcus or, you are starting the process of become a saver.
• James Clear wrote, “your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously)” in his article on identity based habit.

Get Accountability Partners

• While my friend served as an accountability partner for only one week, he was instrumental because he nudged me into signing up for the 5K.
• Also, having people that hold high expectation for you also helped push you forward. In this example, my accountability partners were imaginary. I didn’t know his friends but the desire of not embarrass myself partially pushed me forward.

Can you take a few steps to become a higher earner, a better saver, or a more sophisticated investor?

You bet you can. You just need to get educated and take actions. 

Epilogue

So did I continue to run? My football idol Peyton Manning was great at football, but he didn’t play great in the rain, in cold weather, in the snow, and in the wind.

Similar to him, I don’t like to run in the rain, in cold weather, in the snow, and in the wind. Dissimilar to him, I wasn’t great at running. 

The answer was no. I hibernated for a few months, but as the weather got warmer I started to run again.

I recently got the email for the 5K this September… the mulling has now begun!

Will someone be my accountability partners?