{"id":91723,"date":"2024-04-21T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/21\/gentler-streak-quieted-my-evil-brain-goblin-so-i-could-run-in-peace\/"},"modified":"2024-04-21T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T13:00:00","slug":"gentler-streak-quieted-my-evil-brain-goblin-so-i-could-run-in-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/21\/gentler-streak-quieted-my-evil-brain-goblin-so-i-could-run-in-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Gentler Streak quieted my evil brain goblin so I could run in peace"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Six weeks ago, I was having a tough time sticking to my running routines and goals. Physically, I was mostly fine. Mentally, the thought of running \u2014 a sport I usually love \u2014 made me roll into a blanket burrito and never leave my bed. I started hating myself, but none of my usual fitness apps and trackers were helping. After building a weeklong streak, I couldn\u2019t muster the energy to get out of bed one Saturday. I broke it and spent the next day wallowing in guilt and self-pity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fed up, I went digging around the internet and ended up downloading the Gentler Streak<\/a> app.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Gentler Streak is what it sounds like. It\u2019s an iOS and Apple Watch app with a more compassionate approach toward building a fitness habit. You can set an activity status: active, on a break, sick, and injured. Selecting one of the latter three won\u2019t break your streak. Instead, your activity is represented on an \u201cactivity path,\u201d which is a visualization for your overall training load. There\u2019s educational reading about nutrition, exercise, rest, and the interplay between all three. Each day, you open the app, and it\u2019ll give you a nudge. If you\u2019re super well-rested, you might get told to push it a little. If you\u2019re tired, you\u2019ll get reminded that resting is good, actually. And if you really don\u2019t know what to do, you can tap a \u201cGo Gentler\u201d button on the Apple Watch to see a series of suggested exercises based on activities you like, with recommended durations and intensity levels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s a lot I love about all this. First and foremost, I enjoy that it incorporates breaks and \u201cfailure\u201d into your eventual success \u2014 and doesn\u2019t judge you for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even phrasing it as \u201cchoosing to take a rest day\u201d helps trick your brain into feeling more intentional.<\/em><\/figcaption>Screenshot: Victoria Song \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That lack of judgment is what I needed. Eleven years into my running journey, I\u2019d stumbled into my worst-ever slump. I was caught in a vicious cycle of falling off the horse, getting back on, and then getting angry whenever my efforts were less than perfect. A silly walking app<\/a> helped with reframing my all-or-nothing mindset. The problem is, inside my brain resides an evil hypercritical goblin that will find and dwell in every tiny failing while minimizing all my successes. So what if a fun walking app was getting me out and about? Walking isn\u2019t running. So what if I ran twice a week for a few weeks? You used to run four to five times a week, easy peasy. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I know I\u2019m not supposed to listen to the evil brain goblin, but there are times when life rudely hands it a mighty powerful megaphone. Adding Gentler Streak helped shut it up. It\u2019s not rocket science for an app to say \u201ctaking a rest day won\u2019t affect your overall fitness.\u201d But many don\u2019t. Seeing that phrase over and over again underscored that I had, against my better judgment, started conflating streaks with consistency. Streaks are just one measure of consistency and a flawed one at that. A single break \u2014 which may actually be the better choice for your health \u2014 will wreck your streak, and that\u2019s perceived as a bad thing. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling beholden to one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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None of what Gentler Streak does is novel. Features that emphasize recovery are rampant in other fitness apps. It\u2019s more that it leads with intuition instead of data. There\u2019s a real emphasis on creating space for everything, as opposed to sticking to something. One teaches you how to adapt; the other relies on willpower \u2014 and willpower always runs out. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling beholden to one<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Take the daily \u201cGo Gentler\u201d suggestions. Rest and active recovery (e.g., yoga, walking, low-intensity activity, etc.) are always options 1 and 2. The remaining three are usually things that will help you maintain where you are, push you a little, or push you a lot. You don\u2019t actually have to put in a lot of thought either because the suggestions are there. On stressful days when you\u2019re out of willpower, that helps keep the evil brain goblin from waking up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Like any app, Gentler Streaks still has its flaws, one of them being its reliance on the Apple Watch. You can use it with other trackers, but I\u2019ve had issues with it pulling my sleep data from the Oura Ring reliably. Another is the subscription \u2014 $7.99 per month or $27.49 for a year. I paid, as features like the Go Gentler suggestions and extra data insights are paywalled. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite these shortcomings, a gentler approach seems to be working for me. Some people with iron wills may scoff. To them, I doff my cap and say I envy their blessedly silent brain goblins. But I\u2019m running faster, longer, and more enjoyably than I have in six months. My calf remains uninjured. When I tell myself, \u201cI\u2019m busy today, I\u2019ll squeeze in that run tomorrow\u201d \u2014 the run actually happens. I\u2019ll take it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Six weeks ago, I was having a tough time sticking to my running routines and goals. Physically, I was mostly fine. Mentally, the thought of running \u2014 a sport I usually love \u2014 made me roll into a blanket burrito and never leave my bed. I started hating myself, but none of my usual fitness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-91723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}