Vary Your Routes

We are all creatures of habit.  For example, in my normal run from the house on rural roads, I often run my beloved Harshman Road loop.  I always run it counterclockwise.  Why?  Simply because in that direction I get the boring part right beside I-81 out of the way first, leaving the quiet half for last.  So in that case there’s a pretty good reason for my directionality.

Well, today I ran the Clay Hill Road-Talhelm Road-Strite Road loop.  As with Harshman Road, I always run it counterclockwise but as I started out I realized that there was no good reason for doing so—it was just a habit.  So I ran it in reverse and saw all kinds of things from that side of the road and from that direction that were new to me. It was like another different run altogether.

So, shake it up a bit.  Go ahead and form those new neural pathways.  Unless there’s  compelling reason not to, vary your normal running routes.  Just because.