Run & Track: Changing Mindset with MriyaRun

"Why run marathons? Can't you just run 5k in the morning?" — it's a logical question. Confession time: for the medal, of course! But when something that seemed impossible becomes reality, it changes everything. And the most interesting part isn't the leg workout, but what happens inside your head.

Marathon running is about moving towards goals. But how do you know you're actually moving and not just running in place? This is where my running watch helps my body, and the MriyaRun electronic diary helps my mind. It’s my way of digitizing feelings, tracking changes, and seeing the real picture, not the one my tired brain is painting.

Here are my insights on combining the asphalt with life analytics.

A marathon is like a huge puzzle. When you look at the "42 km" goal or "change my life" goal, it’s scary. It feels like you need to be a superhero. But in reality, it's the art of small steps. The most effective way to solve this puzzle is to do it regularly.

This is exactly where the digital diary saves me. I just log in daily and record a small win or my state of mind. It takes minutes. But when I open the monthly statistics, I see a continuous line of progress. It’s visual proof that "fast is slow, but constant." You don't notice changes in a day, but the 6-month chart shows colossal growth.

My first marathon was terrifying in scale. The 4-month plan looked like a prison sentence. "I can't handle this" was the standard thought. A simple method worked: I stopped looking at the finish line and focused on the current week.

I use the same approach in MriyaRun when setting goals. I don't try to "eat the elephant" whole. I break the big goal into sprints. I open the planner, set tasks only for the next 7 days, and track their completion. When the week is done and the boxes are checked, it gives me the dopamine to keep moving.

Sometimes, running becomes unbearably hard. The future "long and hard" weighs on your psyche. In those moments, the only way out is to "run here and now." Think only about this kilometer.

In life, this is mindfulness. We often carry the weight of past failures or fear of the future. The electronic diary helps me return to "now." When anxiety hits, I open the app and answer a simple question: "What am I grateful for today?". It instantly shifts focus from "how bad it will be later" to "what is good right now."

When you hit "the wall" on the track and your brain is whining, it's easy to give up. To avoid falling into victim mode, I ask myself: "What can I do right now?". Relax my shoulders, drink water, change pace.

This works in daily analysis too. When I see in the diary that my mood has been "at the bottom" for several days, I don't panic. I look at my logs and search for patterns. Aha, did I sleep poorly? Did I forget to rest? The tool allows me to quickly see the cause and take a small action to fix the situation.

Running: Heart rate ok? Legs intact? Keep running. Life: When it seems like everything is lost, I do a resource audit.

In MriyaRun Diary, it's very convenient to track your resources over the long haul. I can look back at records from a year ago and see: oh, I went through a crisis like this last November. And I handled it. This gives support. You see that your "systems" are more stable than they feel emotionally.

My inner perfectionist used to faint at a missed workout. But statistics are stubborn things. When I analyze my achievements digitally over a year, I see an interesting thing: to get a great result, you don't need to be 100% perfect. 85-90% plan completion is enough.

The digital diary format relieves anxiety. You see the trend. One "red" day doesn't spoil a "green" month of success. This cures perfectionism better than any pep talk. Better done than perfect — and the stats confirm it.

In running, it’s simple: overtraining = injury. In life, we often ignore fatigue. Because I track my state, I clearly see the correlation: as soon as the numbers in the "Sleep" column drop, two days later "Productivity" and "Mood" drop too. This isn't esotericism anymore, it's data. So now I plan recovery just as seriously as work tasks.

You can move towards a goal and suffer, or you can enjoy the journey. For me, MriyaRun Diary is a way not to lose that journey. It’s an opportunity to look back after a month or a year and tell myself: "Wow, look how much I've done, how many insights I've caught, how much I've grown."