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Healthy Exercise Habits in College

By Owen, a Writing Coach

Before coming to UNC, a high school teacher told me that time in college is divided between three main responsibilities: schoolwork, sleeping, and socializing. She said that you can only fully commit to two at a time, that any attempt at balancing all three will inevitably lead to either bad grades, no friends, or sleep-deprivation. Naturally, this terrified me. I was deeply afraid that whatever time management skills I had developed in high school would be powerless against the beast of higher education.

I was also afraid that I wouldn’t have time to run. Since starting cross country and track in high school, distance running had become an important part of my life. I loved the feeling of getting stronger and watching my times improve as I worked hard in training. I also valued running as a productive way to take a break from the stresses of life to focus on something simple and repetitive. The summer before I started at UNC, I set an ambitious goal for myself that, I hoped, would challenge me to continue improving my running as a college student: I wanted to run my first marathon and qualify for the Boston Marathon during my first year at UNC.This goal was certainly a stretch for me. I had never run anything close to the 26.2-mile distance and didn’t really know if my body could handle it. I also had no idea whether I’d have time for long training runs as a full-time student. Despite these doubts, I committed to my goal and was fortunate enough to achieve it. In the spring semester of my first year, I finished the Tobacco Road Marathon in a time of 2:53:11 to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Since then, I have finished both the Boston and Chicago marathons, with a personal best of 2:48:39.

A person wearing a white UNC tank top and black shorts holding a medal.
This is me after finishing the very rainy 2023 Boston Marathon!
A person with windswept hair wearing a blue UNC tank top and black shorts running on a road.
This is my crazy hair flopping across the Tobacco Road Marathon’s finish line.
A person wearing a green shirt and black pants holding a medal in front of a crowd of people. There are skyscrapers in the background.
This is me after finishing the 2023 Chicago Marathon (the gauze on my hand is a long story outside the scope of this blog post).

 

Although balancing running with the many other commitments of a full-time student has been a challenge, I’ve managed to do so consistently for three years now. In the process, I have learned a lot about productivity, organization, and how I respond to stress and fatigue. I wanted to share a few key takeaways that may be helpful for anyone looking to prioritize exercise while also maintaining the rigorous schedule of a UNC student. Whether you’re training for your first marathon, hitting the gym, or going for walks around campus, I hope these five points will help you achieve your goals as an active student!

1. Find your people

The first organization I joined at UNC was the marathon club. This decision was probably the single greatest contributor to my exercise habits as a student. Through the team, I met many of my closest friends and had the benefit of a community that supported me as I pursued my goals. We regularly met for group runs and social events, which made running part of my extra-curricular calendar rather than a departure from it. As I prepared for my first marathon, I could easily consult more experienced runners to get advice on nutrition, workouts, and race strategy. Marathon team was an invaluable resource for me as I figured out how to run as a college student.

A group of people wearing athletic clothing posing for a photo outside of a brick building.
This is the UNC Marathon Team before a group run in 2022.

 

Joining a sport club, intramural team, or other student organization dedicated to a physical activity is a great step towards being active in college. Being part of a team with regularly scheduled practices meant that I could run with awesome people every afternoon instead of dragging myself away from homework to trudge through the streets of Chapel Hill by myself. The accountability that comes with exercising in a group can also be hugely important. I don’t know about you, but I am much more likely to wake up early to go to the gym if a friend is meeting me there than if I’m going alone. Joining student organizations or just finding a group of friends who exercise together can have tremendous impacts on your motivation to work towards your goals.

2. Set specific, ambitious, and achievable goals

We humans are naturally resistant to change. Through the process of building consistent running habits, I came to understand how my mind plays tricks on me to resist sustainable change. Setting new goals means preparing myself for an internal struggle against the urge to give up. For me, it’s important to set goals that are resistant to these mental attacks. For this reason, I try to make sure my goals are specific, ambitious, and achievable.

Specificity is a crucial step towards developing a strong goal. Goals that are too general are easily deconstructed by the mind as it tries to resist change. For example, “I want to start running this year” is very general. The amount of running one would have to do to achieve this goal is ambiguous. If this were my goal, and I had planned to wake up early one morning for a run, I would be likely to roll back over and go to sleep because my idea of what achieving this goal means can easily change over time. Maybe I want to run three times a week at first, but this soon diminishes to once, and pretty soon I’ve forgotten about the goal altogether. A specific goal, like “I want to run at least five days a week this year,” is much stronger against this natural temptation. With a goal like this in mind, I would be more likely to get out of bed to run because I know going back to sleep means giving up on a specific ambition.

Goals should also be both ambitious and achievable. This can be a difficult balance to strike, and the pitfalls of leaning too far in either direction can quickly lead to failure. Most goals I’ve given up on in running or elsewhere have been overly ambitious. When I set a goal too far outside the realm of my ability, it’s easy to say, “I would never have done that anyway,” and give up. Likewise, setting goals that are too easily achievable can be counter-productive in the development of an exercise habit. If I know my goal is probably going to be achieved without much difficulty, I will be less motivated to work towards it. This can mean that no real change occurs. As college students, the commitments we juggle daily can make real change difficult to come by. For me, setting goals that are just outside my comfort zone, ambitious yet achievable, has allowed me to continue working towards them when the going gets tough.

3. Plan for and prioritize exercise

Including exercise in my daily plans has been hugely important to maintaining my running habit. Especially when first adjusting to college life, I made sure to schedule my daily runs in a paper planner, just like I would any class assignment or social obligation. This tip is pretty quick and straightforward, but it goes a long way. When college becomes stressful and commitments start piling up, physical activity is often the first thing we let go. By scheduling my running in the same way I would anything else, I was able to continue recognizing it as a priority even when my attention was being pulled elsewhere.

4. Time your exercise strategically

When planning for and prioritizing exercise, as discussed above, I like to select strategic times that fit well within my schedule and interfere with other commitments as little as possible. For this reason, I typically run either first thing in the morning or at around 5 pm in the evening. I find that morning runs are a great way to start my day, as I have already accomplished my first task before getting to my first class. The roads are typically less busy, and, in the warmer months, the weather is much more comfortable. Running in the morning also allows me to be active in a time I wouldn’t otherwise be doing something very productive. I am not someone who typically rolls out of bed ready to work on an assignment, spending most of my mornings enjoying some quiet time before class. For this reason, morning runs allow me to replace this less productive time with exercise, accomplishing one of my daily tasks while waking me up! I schedule some of my runs at around 5 pm for similar reasons. In the late afternoon, I’m usually exhausted from a long day of classes, meetings, and work shifts. For me, this is a great time to run! Going for a jog, either with friends or by myself, rejuvenates my mind as I prepare for a productive evening. As with morning runs, this replaces a time I would usually be struggling to stay focused on work with a short break that improves my motivation and mood late in the day.

A person wearing a white winter coat, red shorts, and blue sneakers.
This is me before a cold morning run in 2023.

 

5. Listen to your body

In this last point, I’d like to acknowledge that staying active, especially in college, is HARD. While there are many strategies that can help make it easier, I don’t mean to gloss over this important fact. Being a college student can be a grueling, physical endeavor. Trying to add on another layer to this fatigue has left me feeling frustrated and defeated more times than I can count. For this reason, it’s important to recognize that listening to your body and staying safe is always the number one priority. If you’re exhausted and need a break, take it. If you’re worried waking up early to exercise will leave you sleep deprived for a big test, sleep in. As with anything, learning to balance exercising in college is just that, a balance. It’s impossible to always choose fitness over the million other things going on in the crazy life of a college student. So, listen to your body, know your limits, take breaks, eat well and often, and don’t be ashamed of taking care of yourself!

A person wearing a patterned sweater eating a burrito at a restaurant.
This is me taking a break from the stresses of running and life to eat a scrumptious breakfast burrito in a ridiculous sweater.

 

I hope these tips were helpful in providing some guidance on how to approach exercising as a college student. Though there are certainly many more strategies out there, these have served me well in my running and I hope they can do the same for you as you work towards your own goals. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post! Happy running, walking, cycling, swimming, lifting, and everything in between!

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