Fueling Fitness: Motivation and Discipline

Summary

In this episode of Ginger and Chocolate, hosts Mike Ergo and Lindsay Hiken explore the dynamics between motivation and discipline in the context of fitness and personal growth. They discuss how motivation can ignite the journey, but discipline is what sustains it, sharing personal anecdotes and strategies to maintain consistency in workouts and life.

Keywords

motivation, discipline, fitness, personal growth, consistency

Takeaways

• Motivation is the spark, discipline is the fuel.
• Consistency beats volume in building habits.
• Set a schedule and stick to it for discipline.
• Use events as motivation to maintain fitness.
• Discipline involves setting yourself up for success.
• Think through the end result to maintain discipline.
• Easy workouts are easy, but challenging ones build discipline.
• Physical activity improves personal quality and relationships.
• Cross-training can enhance endurance and prevent injury.
• Social media can entertain but doesn't replace workouts.

Sound bites

• Motivation is the spark.
• Discipline fuels the journey.
• Consistency beats volume.
• Set a schedule and stick to it.
• Events motivate fitness.
• Discipline sets you up for success.
• Think through the end result.
• Challenging workouts build discipline.
• Physical activity improves quality.
• Social media isn't a workout.

Thanks for listening to the Ginger and Chocolate Podcast. Check out our website at gingerandchocolate.com to get in touch with us. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram @ginger_and_chocolate_podcast; and please subscribe to the show and select automatic downloads on your podcast app.

Transcript

Mike Ergo (00:01.794)
Hey, welcome back everybody to Ginger and Chocolate. I'm your co-host Mike and I'm here with my co-host Lindsay. Lindsay, good morning, how are you?

Lindsay Hiken (00:09.858)
Good morning. I'm doing pretty well actually. I had a decent night's sleep and I'm ready to go.

Mike Ergo (00:17.388)
Yeah, me too. I'm feeling pretty good. It's a nice day. got my dog behind me laying down. He's happy here for the podcast.

Lindsay Hiken (00:27.576)
That's nice, mine are locked away and my bedroom's still sleeping. They like to sleep in until about 6.30 or 7, which is good for recording so that they don't scratch the door. So listen, we have not actually recorded together in a couple weeks. It's been a while. Yeah, I missed you. I usually see you every week. I'm like, what the hell?

Mike Ergo (00:30.733)
He he he.

Mike Ergo (00:35.33)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (00:46.232)
Been little while. Been a little while, so good to be back. I know, right? Yeah, we've only kept up through memes in the last few weeks, so.

Lindsay Hiken (00:57.048)
That's true. We have communicated via meme as do most people nowadays, I think.

Mike Ergo (01:05.173)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (01:07.32)
People do memes or they do doom scrolling and send those to each other and I'm not doing the doom scrolling thing.

Mike Ergo (01:15.022)
yeah, no, that's a little much. Hence why we have this show, a little bit of levity in life when things are going on.

Lindsay Hiken (01:23.434)
huh.

Exactly, exactly. So tell me how is your training going for the marathon?

Mike Ergo (01:32.202)
It's coming. It slacks a little when I went up to Alaska. I was up there doing some fishing with some friends and I did not run. I, slept in till five o'clock and it was awesome. I guess it doesn't really count if you're just only sleeping until five, but go.

Lindsay Hiken (01:50.808)
going to say I don't know what world in which the 5 a.m. is asleep in but okay.

Mike Ergo (01:55.694)
I guess when you get up at three or four with insomnia, it's a sleep in. But now I just wimped out. was dark, windy road and raining. And I don't like running on highways in the dark. So I opted just to not train.

Lindsay Hiken (02:20.183)
Yeah

Mike Ergo (02:22.414)
But lately it's been going well. had a nice little three run or three mile run on the Peloton yesterday and that was good. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, I like mixing it up, having, I like doing most of my runs outdoors, but then having a few of them on treadmill, at least the Peloton treadmill, that's a good one.

Lindsay Hiken (02:29.688)
Yes.

Lindsay Hiken (02:41.538)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, fancy.

Mike Ergo (02:46.082)
Very fancy, keeps your pace steady too, so I like that.

Lindsay Hiken (02:49.52)
Mm hmm. So what is your like weekly volume look like right now? Like how often are you running? Do you have a mileage goal for per the week? So what's that look like?

Mike Ergo (03:01.326)
Mm hmm. Four times a week, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. And I'm putting in about 25 miles a week, maybe. Yeah. So it's, um, it, fluctuates in my long runs, you know, kind of go back and forth. Um, but right now I'm around 15, so I haven't looked too far ahead to see if it'll increase to that or from that, or just stay around there.

Lindsay Hiken (03:13.665)
Okay.

Lindsay Hiken (03:30.786)
That works. I think the longest run I ever did training for a marathon was like maybe 18. I had a coach at that time, which was helpful because I thought I had to run like the marathon before I did the marathon. And she was like, no, that's not even something you need to do. You just need to run close to it then you'll be fine.

Mike Ergo (03:32.543)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (03:37.196)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Mike Ergo (03:44.832)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (03:55.181)
Yeah, well, I think that was the old school training. I remember hearing about guys like, Dave Scott and, them would do an iron man to train for an iron man. Yeah, a lot. And I think a lot of those, you know, geez, a lot of them came with like some heart scarring from not enough recovering and pumping it too hard.

Lindsay Hiken (04:07.446)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (04:22.454)
yeah, that's definitely a thing. And then some of us are more injury prone than others like myself. so doing all that extra, doing the event before the event is something that would just cause me to miss the actual event. hmm. All right, so you're not that far away. When is it again?

Mike Ergo (04:29.356)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (04:39.199)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Mike Ergo (04:45.966)
October 26th, so I'm less than a month out.

Lindsay Hiken (04:48.856)
dang. All right, all right, that's great. I'm excited for you.

Mike Ergo (04:50.946)
Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah, me too. It'd be nice. I haven't done an event in a few years now, so it'd be good to get back to that experience and have an actual event that I've been training for. Cause I think I brought it up in the show before I do a lot better if I'm training for an event. If I'm not training for an event, just, I'll do some stuff for funsies, but I can't get that motivated to train unless it's leading up to something.

Lindsay Hiken (05:11.969)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (05:22.262)
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So I have, I think I've mentioned it two events on my calendar at 10K in December and a half marathon on Christmas, New Year's Day. And so I'm running too, except that I'm not running. I've been blowing it off, which is not helpful. I've been reading a lot of books about running and then not running, which is so crazy.

Mike Ergo (05:34.108)
yeah.

Mike Ergo (05:38.217)
Hehehehe

Mike Ergo (05:49.262)
Hahaha

Lindsay Hiken (05:52.825)
I got, I mean, what the hell? So like before I go to bed or if I wake up in the night and I can't sleep, I like to read. And for the last couple of years, I've been reading about podcasting and I've switched to reading about running. So I've read one Matt Fitzgerald book and I'm 80 20 running and then I'm about halfway through another one run like a pro. And I need to, I need to.

Mike Ergo (06:05.763)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (06:20.588)
be disciplined. So my goal is to run Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. And so I'm going to check in with you regularly. Like I'm running, I'm going to get out there now. I think it's partially because it's dark out now. And so I can't run before work. And I mean, I suppose I could, but I don't like to run in the dark by myself. I had a creepy guy follow me home a few years ago during the day and I had to

Mike Ergo (06:28.525)
Okay.

Mike Ergo (06:32.461)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (06:38.925)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (06:45.88)
pretend like I didn't live where I lived and then I had to yell at him to get away from me because he was just following me. after that, I've been a little bit averse to being out in the dark. mean, yeah.

Mike Ergo (06:55.458)
that we'll put a adapter on it for sure

Lindsay Hiken (06:59.704)
And this was during the day, even the guy was just following me and I'm like, could you what he didn't know is that he was rolling up on an angry menopausal woman who was having a hot flash. And I was just like, get the fuck away from me. Because he ran right up to my face at some point when he realized, like, I was kind of hiding. I kind of stopped behind this van. He ran around the van and ran up to my face and was like, what's your name? And I just said, no.

Mike Ergo (07:12.558)
You

Mike Ergo (07:17.87)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (07:29.432)
No. And I had my dog with me and he looked down and saw, I had Duke with me. looked down, he saw Duke. Then he looked at me and he was like, you know, asked me again, well, what is your name? Is it Lisa? Which I don't know where he got that from. And I just pointed away from me and I go, no, I'm waiting for you to stop following me. Get away from me. And he walked off.

Mike Ergo (07:30.253)
No.

Mike Ergo (07:53.615)
That's one hell of a pickup line or a wave. That's fun.

Lindsay Hiken (07:59.157)
I mean, this was like a 20 something year old guy who's probably six feet tall and he had a hoodie on over his head and he just came rolling like he pretended he was walking down one street and then all of a sudden I turned around and he was behind me. And then when he saw me, when he saw that I saw him, he crossed the street, but then he just matched my pace. And then I stayed behind this van and he came running across the street and around the van like a total creeper. And but they say people, guys,

that are kind of predatory. say, you know, they are assessing, you know, who's vulnerable, who's not vulnerable. And I was just like, I'm going to be a pain in your ass. I'm going to yell. I got a dog with me. Like this ain't going to go down the way you think it is. And he just was like, let me give up on this. I'll find somebody else less.

Mike Ergo (08:46.334)
Yeah, I'm not prey material. Good.

Lindsay Hiken (08:49.528)
No, I'm angry right now. I'm hot. That's why I'm looking at it. But the bummer thing about that is, you know, I didn't get hurt in any kind of way and he'd left and whatever, but I have it in my head somewhere in the back of my mind. So like I used to run from my house in the dark or go walk my dogs in the dark and stuff. And now I just don't want to. Like, I'm afraid I don't, you know.

I've never seen that guy again, but there's just something about doing that that freaks me out. And so now I need to run during the day because it's dark out, you know, and or during even my lunch, I could go do do a short run during the day, but I end up getting sucked into work and then I don't do it. And then I need to do it after. And I've just been farting around. So I'm going to check in with you to get some some discipline.

Mike Ergo (09:30.19)
So you want to do it after.

Mike Ergo (09:43.948)
Yeah.

like it.

Lindsay Hiken (09:47.897)
So I'll just say this last thing. One thing I have been doing very consistently is going to my strength workout, which is crazy because normally I don't want to do the strength and I'll do the running. I've been going two days a week to my little strength class and I love it. And I pop up at five in the morning and I just get over there by five thirty and I have my workout going and it's pretty amazing. So even when I even though I haven't been running, I'm getting stronger, which is something that I need. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (10:14.402)
Yes. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm to hop on my bike today. Yes. Yeah. yeah. I'm not an outside cycling person anymore on the road. just, I'm, I'm gun shy to it just cause knowing too many people have gotten hit and then looking at too many people were texting and driving just doesn't, doesn't appeal to me. And I know you like to grab a bike off road and that sounds like a good deal.

Lindsay Hiken (10:20.236)
Ooh, on the trainer. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (10:27.522)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (10:43.736)
But on road for me, no. I'm on the trainer on Zwift unless I'm out of race.

Lindsay Hiken (10:49.432)
Yeah, I think a lot of people are doing that at this point because Zwift is so good too, know, makes being on the trainer easier. I'm still an outside person, but I have to say I am a little nervous when I hear cars coming up behind me on the road because I'm like, is this person looking where they're going? Because I think a lot of the times nowadays they're not.

Mike Ergo (10:58.712)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (11:09.752)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (11:13.601)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (11:14.42)
So, okay, today we're talking about our discipline versus motivation. And we both described a little bit about motivation to sign up for events, but then there's the discipline piece of it. So I know you looked up a little bit on AI. What did AI have to say about discipline versus motivation?

Mike Ergo (11:22.476)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (11:39.503)
You know, the gist was this and we'll go over it a little bit is that motivation is great and it can get you started. But if you rely on motivation to keep going, your fitness levels will wax and wane with the level of motivation you have kind of dependent on your mood. You know, whereas discipline is a constant steady force if you employ it.

Lindsay Hiken (11:59.071)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (12:09.376)
So, you know, you'll get, you can get started with motivation and you can get spikes of motivation along the way, but better to have that as the match that starts the fire and the kindling and firewood to be the discipline that you set up in your daily life to accomplish it because we all feel better after we work out. There's been few times where I haven't felt better because I was sick.

Lindsay Hiken (12:37.452)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (12:37.646)
However, every other time I feel better after working out. it's just about starting really. and, know, getting, I mean, we've talked about habits and to maintain discipline. Honest, my dog barking in the background. Stop dreaming. Dreaming about chasing squirrels. sure. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (12:44.6)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (12:48.781)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (12:59.426)
That definitely sounded like a dream bark. Yeah, I am a person who is high in motivation and lacks discipline. So I have big dreams, you know, I'm always like, I'm to do this, that and the other. I genuinely want to do these things. But then I do rely heavily on that motivation to get me going during the period leading up to the event. And and you're right, it doesn't.

Mike Ergo (13:11.106)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (13:29.632)
it doesn't sustain a consistent workout.

Mike Ergo (13:33.647)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's, I think it's tough to build discipline. I was about to say it takes discipline, but it involves setting yourself up for success, I think. You know, like laying your workout clothes out the night before, having these consistent times to work out. So it just kind of goes into muscle memory. This is what I do at this time.

Lindsay Hiken (13:34.904)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (14:00.579)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (14:01.914)
and having a strong why, you know, why I'm doing this, why, why you're doing this. And then, so, you know, letting yourself skip a workout occasionally if you're sick, tired, injured, but for the most part sticking to the plan and letting yourself imagine, remember,

Lindsay Hiken (14:21.464)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (14:31.424)
I should say what it feels like to be done with it beforehand so you can kind of prime yourself.

Lindsay Hiken (14:35.096)
Mm hmm. Right.

Yeah, you know, the program they talk about...

when you have a craving for a drink or a drug or any kind of craving like that for an addictive behavior to think it through. So think that drink through to the end before you take the drink, because it ain't going to end well. And if you can bring yourself mentally through the process to what the end result is, you have a better chance of not taking that drink. And it's sort of the same, a little flipped in reverse, but it's sort of the same thing with discipline. It's like,

Mike Ergo (14:53.72)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (14:59.053)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (15:16.326)
If you can think through what a run would feel like towards that, you know, at the end with the result, you know, you're more likely to take that run than just, I don't feel like it today. I'm tired. I got work. I got blah, blah, Which is what I've been doing lately.

Mike Ergo (15:34.243)
Well, some of I want to I'd like to hear what you think about this, but some of my favorite workouts have been the ones I didn't want to do. And then afterwards, I just feel like a champion because I did it. I didn't want to set out. Maybe I wanted to quit part way through, but I stuck with it and did it. And that builds that discipline. And it feels good afterwards because easy workouts are easy.

Lindsay Hiken (15:59.32)
Next.

Lindsay Hiken (16:03.684)
Right, right, right. Yeah, that's true. Easy workouts are always easy. And those are what I'm looking for, because I'm a little lazy to be. I'm not lazy. know, generally speaking, I work and I do all these things, but I can get lazy with my workouts. That's something that changed for me over during the pandemic. I just I lost my sense of discipline and I have.

Mike Ergo (16:25.952)
Mm-hmm. Same here.

Lindsay Hiken (16:29.716)
not really gotten it back, which is, I it's been five years, so you'd think by now, but yeah, I think that I agree, you know, when I just go do the workout that I don't want to do, when I'm done, that feeling of elation is, is higher. And I don't know if like, there's more endorphins when I run, when I don't want to run or what, but I definitely feel

Mike Ergo (16:52.43)
you

Lindsay Hiken (16:58.712)
a little bit happier, more excited, a little bit up.

Mike Ergo (17:04.994)
Yeah, I think part of it, and this is going back to people like Jocko Willink, the Navy Seal podcast or David Goggins, that when you do something difficult or when you struggle a bit, you feel like you really earned it. And I think at some level we kind of need

Lindsay Hiken (17:25.622)
Right.

Mike Ergo (17:31.723)
some adversity and some struggle, not too much to where everything's overwhelming, right? But in modern life, we're not actively part of the food chain every day for the most part. I think our being just kind of gets a little stagnant if there's no struggle. And so that's...

Lindsay Hiken (17:37.334)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (17:45.536)
Right.

Lindsay Hiken (17:55.372)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (17:56.591)
I mean, you see that people who are well disciplined in life outside of athletic pursuits are generally in good shape because that's how you build those habits, I think, by training your body, it trains your mind.

Lindsay Hiken (18:04.952)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (18:10.904)
Mm-hmm. That's an interesting topic and maybe we'll dive into it one time, but I've read some things about sort of the human condition that we've evolved a lot, but we haven't evolved past the need to problem solve because that's how we survived and became an apex predators by problem solving. You know, we're not, we don't have the power and strength of alliance, say, but we do have these brains and

So there's this need to regularly be looking for a problem to solve because that used to be daily life. Like, how are we getting food? How am I staying alive? And now we've, in modern life, we've got all these creature comforts. We don't need to think about staying alive, generally speaking. And you know.

Mike Ergo (18:49.006)
.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (19:02.818)
Right.

Lindsay Hiken (19:05.49)
not everybody, but most of us do have access to food that we need to sustain us. And so as a species, we're now just looking for things. So that's why you see this same article I was talking about was like how it's all relative. You'll see people who have a ton of money, for example. So

Mike Ergo (19:29.08)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (19:30.29)
anything they want or need is at their fingertips. There's literally nothing impeding them from getting anything they want and need. And yet they're not necessarily happier and they have all these problems that are seemingly like to the rest of us like, what are you talking about? You know, why is this even upsetting you? And it's because the brain needs to find a problem to solve. I'll give a quick example. Josh has a friend who is in that situation, you know, just incredibly rich and he could not get the

Mike Ergo (19:31.982)
you

Lindsay Hiken (19:59.897)
warrior, you know, tickets that he wanted in for that year. And he wanted these sort of floor seats that are, you know, a bazillion dollars and he they were sold out. And he was having a meltdown. He was so upset. You know, he called Josh like these seats are out and I can't get him. And he was genuinely like distraught. And in our world, that's not a thing like.

not going to be genuinely a strut over not being able to get the season tickets I want, because I have other things to fish to fry, like I need to pay my mortgage. You know what I mean? And so there's that brain. so if you can create some things for your brain to work on that are healthy, you're better off.

Mike Ergo (20:34.263)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Ergo (20:49.174)
Yeah, exactly. Things that come too easy are boring. I mean, yeah, it's a there's I guess we could talk a little more about building discipline in your daily life and what that looks like and what's what's hard about it. what makes it a little more doable. And besides the things we've mentioned already,

Lindsay Hiken (20:55.618)
Yeah, 100%.

Lindsay Hiken (21:13.24)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (21:18.734)
I think what helps me with discipline is to lay out a plan. What I want to achieve, let's say, I don't know, we'll call it like an Iron Man, right? I want to achieve this goal and here are the steps to break it down of what I need to do and make it into smaller bits that I can do each day. And

set up rewards for myself so after I do something then I permit myself to do something else that's easy fun carefree you know if I want to spend time looking at memes or whatever on Instagram I'll do that after maybe I run

Lindsay Hiken (22:05.11)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (22:10.302)
Right, right. That's a good point.

Mike Ergo (22:12.078)
So yeah, so there's, ways to leverage our brains to do this a little better. Cause without some kind of reward or a point or a why it's, it's just flogging ourselves. And that's not fun. I mean, I think you talk about the evolutionary side of it and we're designed to be calorie expedient for survival.

So the idea of going into a situation where we're exerting our body for no gain of food or safety or, you know, basic life functions, it kind of throws our brain for a loop. Like why are you doing this? There's not a predator chasing you. You're not running after food.

Lindsay Hiken (23:00.034)
Right.

Right.

Mike Ergo (23:03.906)
you're not running away or towards, you know, some kind of battle. So what are you doing? You're just exerting yourself and why are we doing this? Yeah, exactly.

Lindsay Hiken (23:10.016)
Right. Why are we doing this? And so an event kind of creates that, sort of mimics that thing where it's like, I've got this looming event out there and I'm running towards that event so that I can, well, participate in it. But then the brain is like, OK, there's a reason.

Mike Ergo (23:24.909)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (23:35.479)
I need to be fit to do this event. It's there. I've got a why. And that's kind of interesting because a lot of times when people say, what is my why? And it's sort of like, they think of something like very, like my why is that.

Mike Ergo (23:35.512)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (23:40.824)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (23:56.021)
I run for XYZ charity or I run for to remember my I've done it. I've done a half iron man sort of in the name of my stepfather who had just passed away. Those are good wise, but you can have the Y just be the event. Like I just want to do these running events because I like running. want to get back into running. That doesn't have to be a strong Y and the event is my Y for in theory.

Mike Ergo (23:59.759)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (24:09.838)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (24:18.754)
Yeah, exactly.

Lindsay Hiken (24:25.888)
running, although I haven't been doing it lately.

Mike Ergo (24:28.642)
Yeah, yeah, my my why is is shifted a little bit. It's you know, I still do events to honor people that I've lost, but I realized along the way that. I need. The physical activity. To to be a better person for the people around me and for myself.

Lindsay Hiken (24:51.32)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (24:58.668)
You know, I need that if I don't have that the quality of person I am drops significantly. I just I need it.

Lindsay Hiken (25:08.44)
I like the way you put that the quality of person. I feel the same way when I do my 530 a.m. strength class that day I'm always have a better day because I just feel a little more chill. I'm like throw things at me universe I'm good.

Mike Ergo (25:23.63)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (25:34.267)
there's a can-do attitude I think that is there after one accomplishes a workout and you know I feel that too and I just realized that you know when my kids are growing up especially now they deserve the best version of me you know and my wife does my my co-workers my friends myself and so I just I want to

Lindsay Hiken (25:42.008)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (26:02.658)
I want to be that person as consistently as possible.

Yeah. And you think of the quality of work you can do at your job or what you can produce for the community or the world at large. And it's, it's better when you're at your best, right? Not saying anything revolutionary here. It's just when you're doing better, you can, you can provide better for others.

Lindsay Hiken (26:21.079)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (26:27.736)
That's right. And it's a little bit like being in an airplane, they say put your oxygen mask on first before you help someone else. Working out is a little bit of that oxygen mask for me. I'm definitely more willing and able to help somebody else or to do a good job at my job.

Mike Ergo (26:36.002)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (26:50.381)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (26:51.688)
And the other thing I do right now, and I think I've mentioned before, is that I go to the program five days a week. I go to AA at 7 AM. It would be easier for me to run at 7, but I've been very disciplined about going to this meeting. And it really helps. So I don't want to give that up to run. It's something I want to do and run. But.

Mike Ergo (27:01.902)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (27:09.357)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (27:14.208)
Yes.

Lindsay Hiken (27:17.772)
doing that one-two punch of like an early morning workout plus a meeting. So by eight o'clock I've had a workout in and I've had a meeting. I'm I'm zenned out. I'm all good. Things happen at work or wherever in life and I'm like, yeah, it's cool. I can figure this out, it's fine. Whereas without that, I'm sort of like, fuck, why is this happening to me?

Mike Ergo (27:24.109)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (27:29.58)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (27:46.113)
It all becomes about like me and poor me why, you So there's definitely a very marked difference in who I am with without the workouts. And yet discipline, having discipline is challenging, I think. I like what you said about doing, you know, setting up a schedule and doing a workout at the same.

Mike Ergo (27:49.827)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (27:57.323)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (28:03.106)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (28:10.978)
time of day. So that you you start that muscle memory starts wanting it because that's what happens with my meetings like 7am I want to be at that meeting like I can just feel it and it feels off if I don't go.

Mike Ergo (28:22.838)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then when, when it's a little more loosey goosey, when you work out or have a specific thing that you're disciplining yourself to doing is, just you run into kind of the choice fatigue of like, well, I can do it later. And then, you know, you have to figure it out and that becomes stressful for the brain. And most of the scope, shut it down. Don't do it. Right.

Lindsay Hiken (28:48.856)
That's what happened to me yesterday. I didn't run. I was really tired. I had a bad night's sleep. I had to work. And at work is finally busy. I've been bored at my job. This new job I got last November, I've been really bored. And so it was easier to do some workouts because I just was like, whatever, I have anything to do. But now I have a lot to do. And so I kind of got into that pitfall of

Mike Ergo (28:50.754)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (29:09.624)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (29:15.832)
Okay, I'm going to run at lunch. Okay, wait, no, I'm not going to run at lunch, but I'll run after these meetings. Okay, then I didn't run after the meetings. And then I knew that I was meeting my sponsor like a half an hour after work ended. So then there's no way for me to do the workout. And it was that choice fatigue, as you put it that and it felt bad. That's the thing.

Mike Ergo (29:30.114)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (29:37.933)
Yeah, doesn't feel good. Doesn't feel good. One thing that I've learned and suggest to other people when I've, when I or they have been in situations where you want to build a habit and build that discipline is take the thing you're doing. Let's say it's run five miles, cut that in half and then cut that in half. If you're starting out.

because I know we're getting into different territory talking about habits, but, habits and discipline go together. So the, what, the productivity guru, Tim Ferris came up with is that, we're studied is that consistency beats volume almost every time. Because if you try to add volume first,

Lindsay Hiken (30:14.072)
That's right.

Lindsay Hiken (30:30.093)
Mike Ergo (30:34.464)
your motivation and discipline will usually crumble if you don't have the discipline already. Motivation will fall out. However, if you have consistency, you can build volume on that a lot easier.

Lindsay Hiken (30:49.88)
Yeah, yeah, that's a really, really good point. Maybe that's what I'll do. I'll just cut out cut. Not that I'm running long by any stretch of the imagination anyway, but if I cut it down, it might be like, oh, okay, well, I can go run for 15 minutes. I mean, I don't have to run for an hour.

Mike Ergo (31:05.742)
That's the thing. That's the thing. We, we, we learned how to build the volume a lot easier after we have the consistency done. Cause it, there's also the intimidation factor of a big workout, right? And then it becomes all or nothing. So what's, what's better, you know, not doing, let's say for me, a 13 mile run at all, or doing

Lindsay Hiken (31:18.912)
Right.

Lindsay Hiken (31:31.809)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (31:35.151)
three to five miles. mean, right. Ideally, yeah, there's ideally, but then there's what you're actually going to do. And the thing is too, you start working out. Um, sometimes it's like, okay, you have to slog through it, but sometimes you're like, all right, I'm here, I'm doing it. Might as well do the whole thing. So it's another nice little brain hack to kind of trick yourself into it. You know, just, just start, just start and then quit after 10 minutes.

Lindsay Hiken (31:38.284)
Right. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (31:55.479)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (31:59.065)
.

Mike Ergo (32:03.382)
if you want to and you have that out and then.

Lindsay Hiken (32:05.878)
Yeah, that's a good point. And I think I'm going to try that to help with with the discipline. Because like I said, I want to go on the same run schedule you're on. That's what works for me with the strength training and, and everything in there as well. And you know, the the the book I just read by Matt Fitzgerald, about 8020 running, he talks about it's not necessarily like

Mike Ergo (32:15.608)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (32:32.856)
exactly the same as a Tim Ferriss point, but he talks about running 80 % at a really slow pace, just easy pace, and that most pros run this way. 80 % of their runs are like in zone one, essentially, and that the 20 % are like mid to hard runs.

Mike Ergo (32:41.036)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (32:50.475)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (32:57.096)
And that one of the things, one of the reasons this or a couple of the reasons this is good is A, it reduces the risk of injury. B, it helps build consistency because if you've got to do a hard run every day, I mean, it becomes hard to want to get out there. If it's like, I'm going to go super slow, then it's

Mike Ergo (33:06.359)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (33:17.827)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (33:21.134)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (33:23.444)
easier to go, okay, this isn't going to be a big deal. I'm just going to go out and run slow and you can increase that volume more. And it's very hard. These pros are running like 100, 120 miles a week. And it's very hard to get up that, get up to even that volume if you're running harder.

Mike Ergo (33:30.893)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (33:40.803)
Yes, it really is. And I think it taps into our physiology too, for the reasons we talked about their brains want to be calorie expedient, but also the recovery time. And I was, I was using something called the Moffatone method for a while, which is similar to the 80 20, and more extreme aversion, I guess, was that you do all your stuff below like your anaerobic threshold.

Lindsay Hiken (33:52.344)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (34:08.558)
and you sprinkle in like a dash assault, you sprinkle in sprints and things like that, but most of the training is done at that lower level for running and cycling.

Lindsay Hiken (34:22.424)
Yeah, so very similar theories, I think, with 80-20, that 20 % has some slow running in recovery in between these hard efforts. then the other. And interestingly, he said that pros are very good at doing this, and they execute, and that your average just like runner who's running for fun, not a pro,

Mike Ergo (34:27.864)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (34:34.147)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (34:48.43)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (34:49.272)
has a really hard time executing on this. And partially it's because of our egos. We don't want people to us running that slow. And so we try to get like, we try to match times. You know, I want to run my race pace every time I want to eight minute miles or whatever. I don't want to see someone to see me running 10 and a half minute miles.

Mike Ergo (35:02.678)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Ergo (35:09.718)
Yep, you just kind of gravitate towards the middle, you know, and that happens a lot. And you know, it's, I guess it's better to have the longer, slower runs or more consistent, slower runs. And then the speed work, you know, done as prescribed rather than run in the middle and just not get the benefit of either. So

Lindsay Hiken (35:34.615)
Right. And then, you know, for me, it's like get injured or lose any sense of motivation because I'm I can feel like my Achilles tendons starting to sing or whatever it is. All right. Well, that's. That all makes sense. And the.

Mike Ergo (35:39.598)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (35:47.095)
Yep.

Lindsay Hiken (35:54.041)
the book did describe that 80 20 could be used for any endurance, know, so swimmer swimmers can use it. Cyclists can use it. And in fact, it recommends cross training for runners. And so apparently, like, Meb and other pros do cross train, they've changed some of their runs out for now they're running twice a day. So they'll change one of their one of their runs a day for he said,

Mike Ergo (36:00.409)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (36:13.346)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (36:16.822)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (36:23.66)
like elliptical is a good one, cycling is a good one. So you're doing your rides today as you being cross training. So that's a good thing to do. What else about motivation and discipline? Sounds like you're pretty motivated to do your marathon.

Mike Ergo (36:31.768)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (36:36.077)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (36:44.78)
Yeah, am. It did wane a little bit after I had the week off from Alaska. But.

I go back to my why I go back to, all right, just get a short workout in and feel how good it feels and what I want to build and having a race after my race set up, you know, with a half iron man and March and then possibly some other things and then setting up some five, 10 Ks with my daughter that I really enjoy doing, you know, so it's like, yeah, being in shape, working towards something a lot better.

Lindsay Hiken (37:13.694)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (37:29.464)
you

Mike Ergo (37:30.71)
lot better than just kind of being bored and scrolling through social media too long.

Lindsay Hiken (37:37.461)
Right, so easy to do. I have to say a lot of the social media stuff I look at makes me laugh, which is a healthy thing to do, but it doesn't have the same effect as a workout.

Mike Ergo (37:38.868)
I always feel better. Yeah, I always feel better.

Mike Ergo (37:46.744)
Yeah.

No, no it doesn't. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (37:53.301)
If you are listening to our podcast, you should also be following us on Instagram and or Facebook because I've been making a lot of memes about running and or cycling and posting those. And I try to be funny and I think some of them are funny. I post them on my personal TikTok as well. And I've been having a lot of people I don't know.

Mike Ergo (38:01.729)
Yes.

Lindsay Hiken (38:18.4)
who are runners, commenting and liking them just because they can relate. Like I did one last week about how some people, some runners or a lot of runners have urged to go number two during the run. And I did one saying, when you're mid run and you regret that second Kevokov.

Mike Ergo (38:24.611)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (38:35.704)
Yep.

Mike Ergo (38:42.306)
Second cup of coffee, yep, yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (38:46.552)
And so I'm doing, I use CapCut. So I have all these really funny videos that I can put this to. And so yeah, check it out if you want to laugh about the sport that we do. So I don't know, did we do it? Are we done? Do we have anything else? All right. All right. Well, listeners, go ahead.

Mike Ergo (38:48.216)
gets real.

Mike Ergo (39:05.932)
I think so. I think so, yeah. Yeah.

No, I think we can do more of a deep dive into both motivation and discipline at different times. But just want to kind of cap it off is yeah, motivation can be the match that lights the fire and discipline is the firewood that keeps it going. Motivation is not there.

Lindsay Hiken (39:19.873)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (39:34.944)
Right, right. So there's steps. Step one, become motivated to do something, whether it's an event or, you know, it's a personal motivation, like an internal one, like Mike has been doing his Iron Man for all these years, or just the event itself. Step two, set up your schedule and follow it without concerning yourself about how you feel.

Mike Ergo (39:38.115)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (40:02.636)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (40:05.4)
Okay, I'm motivated and I am committing to being disciplined. I'm gonna check in with you, Mike, and be like, I did my run or at least admit that I'm not doing it, because I think I don't wanna admit it to you that I'm not doing it. Yeah, absolutely. All right, listeners, well.

Mike Ergo (40:15.458)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (40:18.958)
We'll be running the same day, so this helps.

Lindsay Hiken (40:27.34)
Thank you for listening. And if you want to do one thing to support the podcast, rate and review on whatever podcast app that you listen to. You can rate us, hey, any number of stars you want, but we'd like all five if you are feeling it. And review. And that will help us get us out there. So other people who could enjoy the podcast and maybe

use some of the advice that we have can listen. So anyway, we will see you next week.

Mike Ergo (41:02.924)
See y'all later.

Lindsay Hiken (41:03.713)
Bye.