The Habit Rule

If you’ve read this far, you already know that to become a runner, running has to become a habit - like brushing your teeth.

Every habit exists because it’s anchored to a specific time or trigger.
 

You wake up -> you brush your teeth.
You get home -> you change into comfy clothes.
Before bed -> you check the doors.
Maybe you play music while cooking or scroll your phone before sleep.

That’s how habits stick: they live inside structure.
Running is no different.
You can’t wait for the perfect time to run. You have to assign it a time.

Because if running doesn’t have a place in your day, it won’t have a place in your life.

Know Your Running Type

You can run any time of day, but you need to know which version of you runs best.

I’m a morning runner. If I don’t move before the world wakes up, I won’t move at all. Excuses multiply as the day goes on - work, traffic, kids, fatigue, the illusion of “later.”

So I run before my brain can negotiate. Before it can talk me out of it. My goal is simple: be faster than my mind.

Maybe you’re not a morning person. Maybe your clarity comes in the quiet after work, when the noise fades and it’s just you and the road.

Whatever your time is - claim it, protect it, repeat it. 

The more predictable your run, the easier it becomes to show up.

The Time Audit

Let’s be honest. Time doesn’t magically appear. You have to make it.

There are 24 hours in a day, but not all hours are equal. Some belong to work, some to family, some to the chaos in between. Let’s break it down realistically.

Start with 8 hours for sleep.
You may not be getting that much now, but keep it there anyway. That’s your goal. Running without recovery will catch up with you eventually, and no amount of caffeine or discipline will save you from burnout. So treat those 8 hours as sacred.

Then add 8 hours for work.
Whether you’re at a desk, in meetings, or managing a thousand moving parts, those hours are already spoken for.

Now pad on 3 hours - an hour or two before and after work for commuting, school drop-offs, getting ready, or simply decompressing before you can switch roles again.

At this point, we’ve used up 19 hours. That leaves 5.

Five hours to eat, cook, clean, manage your home, run errands, help with homework or just exist as a human being. It’s not much - and that’s why we need to be intentional.

Let’s assume:

That leaves 1 hour.

One single hour that’s yours.
That’s where your run lives.

Even if you only spend 30 minutes of that time running, it’s still worth it.
And remember - it’s not 30 minutes every day. It’s just 30 minutes, four days a week.

To be honest, when I first looked at my schedule, that hour didn’t exist.
I had to be honest about where my time was actually going.
Social media, random browsing, and background TV were quietly eating away at the day. Once I let those go, space appeared.
It wasn’t about adding more. It was about subtracting what didn’t matter.

Now that hour belongs to me, and I protect it like everything depends on it - because, in a way, it does.

If you’re reading this and thinking, there’s no way I have an extra hour, do the math anyway. Write it down. When you actually see where your hours go, it’s easier to see what can move, and what can’t.

For me, that realization was brutal but freeing. I stopped chasing “free time” and started creating it.

My runs usually start at 5:00 AM.
It’s when the world hasn’t started asking for things yet.

No one’s awake. No messages. No noise.
It’s the only time the world leaves me alone, and I guard it fiercely.

Some days, if I’ve had a rough night or I know the run will be short and easy, I wait until after the kids leave for school.
But most days, I’m up before sunrise because I know how I’ll feel if I skip it.

Missing a run didn’t bother me at first. But over time, something shifted. Once running became a habit, skipping it felt heavier than doing it.

That’s when you know you’ve become a runner - when excuses start to feel worse than effort.

In the early days, it’s not about guilt or speed.
It’s about that one hour you created for yourself  and remembering why you chose to run in it.

At that hour, the only thing I’m thinking about is the kind of run I’m doing that day: slow, steady, or strong.

It reminds me that I’m capable of showing up for myself.

It reminds me I can do hard things - not once, but again and again.

Final thought

Running doesn’t start with speed, endurance, or mileage.
It starts with one protected hour - the one you give yourself before the world needs you.

Some days, you’ll crush it. Some days, you’ll need grace.
But as long as you keep showing up for that hour, you’ll always find your way back to yourself.

Stay Beautiful, Stay Powerful.

Lavanya