Miles for calories, not calories for calories

Whenever I had used a treadmill in the past, it was to burn off calories and drop pounds. I'd painfully watch the calories rack up one by one until about 300 or 400. With a pound consisting of 3600 calories, an extra few hundred burned, didn't seem to make much of a difference, and therefore I'd never give the extra effort to improve my daily burn. Calories burned was not much of a motivator.

My goal since November, however, has been to run distances. I'd like to run an official marathon. Seeing my distance improve weekly, is a strong motivator to jump on the treadmill and push myself harder each time. I ran 5 miles on Saturday. It took me just under 60 minutes. Every tenth of a mile I ran past 4 miles felt like a major achievement, with 4 miles being my best to that date. The best part of running is the improvements you make over what you have already accomplished. It might be the hardest physically but the improvement is why I jump on the treadmill every other day in the first place. It just so happens, that with these incremental improvements, the calories burned seem to rack up on their own. 5 miles meant 750 calories burned. 750! That to me is just insane. I have never burned that many calories at one time, ever! Obviously more distance equals more calories, but it is the difference in mindset between the two strategies that I find so interesting.

Rack up the miles if you want to burn calories....don't aim to simply burn calories because you'll always feel like you are not getting anywhere!