You wake up in the morning, put on your running shoes, run the hour you had scheduled, and feel happy because you've completed today's training. Now you can do whatever you want until tomorrow or the day after when your next session is due. Right? Mm… not exactly.
The success of your training depends greatly on what you do during the remaining 23 hours of the day. The sum of all activities, positive or negative, stressful or relaxing, physical or mental, that you do throughout the day has a direct effect on your performance and on how your body and mind assimilate the demands of exercise.
Have you ever wondered why sometimes you feel tired even before exercising, or you're weak or your performance doesn't improve and even gets worse after weeks or months of training? The answer may lie in the stress generated by the work and social activities you do during the day, poor nutrition, or insufficient rest. In other words, the problem isn't what you do during training, but what you do the rest of the day.
If you arrive to train carrying a whole load of negative stress on top of you, you can't expect optimal performance. What do your work problems have to do with your performance? Well, a lot. Training is a stress, or rather a "eustress" (positive stress). When you run, your entire body changes, your metabolism accelerates, and hormonal and physical changes happen that you'd never imagine; it's a complete revolution!
And that revolution ends with positive effects: you release endorphins, improve your cardiovascular health, strengthen your muscles, and receive a long list of physical and psychological benefits. But for these positive effects to happen, it's essential that you rest enough, eat well, and haven't accumulated other types of negative stress.
That is, if you want to perform and train well YOU HAVE TO arrive well-rested and well-fed and YOU HAVE TO avoid or minimize all types of negative stress such as work, family, or academic stress. Otherwise, exercise can become just another burden and instead of benefits it can bring you harm because it would become an additional negative stress. The sum of all those loads can lead you to permanent fatigue, poor performance (social, physical, and academic), and depression.
In summary, everything you do during the day affects your performance and well-being. The priority is to eat and sleep well, plus have control over activities that can generate negative stress, like work. If you can't control distress (harmful stress), running will help you reduce the effect of those negative loads, as long as you take it as a moment of relaxation and pleasure (not thinking about times or records).
If what you want is to improve your time at some distance or run a marathon, it's good that you know that for your body's purposes training lasts 24 hours and everything you do will affect your performance. If you don't eat well, don't sleep enough, and are also dealing with high doses of distress, don't expect to achieve your sports goals. Better start by reducing sources of negative stress and then, only then, set the goal of improving your times.
