little habits, big progress

sunny barbee
Jan 14, 2025
6 min read

Updated: Mar 26, 2025

I started running in 2019 when I was 52. I remember the exact moment. I was sitting in a booth at a favorite Mexican restaurant, sipping a margarita, snacking on chips and salsa, listening to my brother tell our parents and me about his latest Spartan race. Daddy asked him what was next and my brother said, "I've got a trail race coming up."

This was that exact moment I told you about, where I decided to become a runner. Without even thinking it through, I blurted out, "I wanna run a trail race with you! Let's do a marathon!"

Holy broomsticks! What in tarnation had come over me? I wasn't a runner, not even a little bit. I mean, I ran one season of cross country in high school and two months of track before I decided nope, not for me, let me go be the editor of the school newspaper or keep score for the baseball team or volunteer after school in the library. I did NOTHING in college that even RESEMBLED running, unless you count running late for class.

I DID teach ballroom dancing for ten years, and one time, when I turned 40, I convinced myself that if I ran a marathon, I wasn't getting old. I did complete that torture, but back then we had these little tracker thingies on our shoes, and I got lost on the course you see, because I was SO SLOW, traipsed through some mud to find my way back to the right road, ruined those shoes, had to change, endured cold freezing rain and sleet the rest of the way to the finish line, only to have it all not count as finished because of that stupid tracker thingie that I'd left on my other muddy shoes. Ugh.

So, running and me? Nope. Why on earth did I blurt out that now, at 52, sitting next to beast man brother, I wanted to run a race with him? And brain? Help me out here? Why didn't you suggest a 5k?

Anyways, to steal our daddy's favorite phrase, it is what it is. The words were out there, hanging out there between us, and I couldn't take them back. I had to stand behind what I said. I'd no choice.

I said it, I bet it, I stole my mama's credit, I'm cool, I'm hot.

Sock me in the stomach three more times!

(Extra points if you know where that little ditty comes from, and extra BIG points if you can recite the whole thing!)

Anyways, back to our story, I went for a run right after lunch and poof! Now I'm an awesome marathon runner.

I WISH.

What really happened was a series of total unfortunate events, the likes of which I'll spare you for now, but I WILL say that through this whole process I've learned one HUGE lesson and that is that little habits make big progress. Yeah, setting a goal is cool and all, and is such fun to do, even if it's a big goal that you have NO idea how you'll even tackle it, but that fun soon wears off, and you've still got WEEKS or MONTHS of training to get through. OR you actually get to that goal, accomplish it, or not, and then what? I know, I know, set another goal. And I do. But you know what has helped me more than goal setting and goal chasing? And worrying over whether you set too big or too scary a goal?

Little habits.

All the seemingly small habits that really don't seem to be moving the needle at all, until one day, maybe even a year from now, two years, three years, you look back and see just how far you've come! This is exactly what happened with my running. I DID set goals. BUT also, I started making tiny changes in my day-to-day.

* I started inching my bedtime earlier. I moved it from 11 to 10:45 to 10:30 to 10 to 9:30 to 9.

* Instead of tackling all the things that were out of whack with my nutrition, I started small and developed the habit of drinking a smoothie each morning. Frozen fruit, bananas, almond milk and kale or spinach...every single day.

* I weaned myself off of wine, then beer, then margaritas. (I just liked 'em a little too much.)

* My kid (the one that still lives at home) and I decided to give up caffeine together. (Again, I liked that caffeine jolt too much, and it was messing with my sleep!)

* I set up a cute little space to practice my yoga. Doesn't mean I always do it, but hey, small steps right?

* I began dressing as a runner. This sounds silly, but it helped me SEE myself as a runner.

* I bought 5-lb weights. Sometimes, I even use them.

* I started swimming at the senior center. (Stop laughing. NO, I'm not going to be in the senior games!)

Of course, this list could go on and on, but hopefully you get the picture. AND notice that none of these are actually about running. They're just tiny adjustments I thought would help me along. And they did.

I started noticing that as I tweaked more, I felt better all the way around and so I could run more and better. Stronger. Seeing progress gave me motivation and that motivation led to more progress. I started applying this idea to my running. Instead of wondering how I'd EVER be able to run a marathon, I focused on running up that hill over there. Over and over. Or laying out my running clothes the night before and getting up early one day this week. Or adding a half mile to my Saturday run. Little things that don't seem to matter much added up, truly. AND as I was busy making all these small changes, and turning those small changes into habits, I started FEELING like I was a runner.

And you know what? Those big scary goals don't seem so big or scary if you break them into little bite-sized pieces. All the tiny wins, the getting up early to stretch habit, the going to bed on time and making sleep a real priority habit, the I-swim-on Tuesdays routine, the Wednesdays-are-for-a-longer-run idea, each smoothie each morning, every day without drinking alcohol, each 10-minute block of strength training, heck, even just writing my training plan on the calendar...all these add up BIG time.

I never ran that marathon. We didn't get to. Covid closed all the races down that year. But you know what?

We started running all sorts of races together as soon as they opened back up, and even though my brother is still a beast and WAY faster than me, I am a runner now. I wanted to be one, I said it out loud, and then I went about becoming one.

Me and all my little habits.

That's pretty big progress, if you ask me.

2024 was my five year runversary. To celebrate that coming up, in 2023, I ran all the distances in one year, a few 5k's, a couple of 10k's, two half-marathons, I completed the Goggins Challenge (yikes, that was hard!). I finished a marathon and then, just to see if I could, I ran my first ultra. 32 miles.

Then, I took a WHOLE year, 2024, to reflect on my running, to run for fun, to rest, to just relax and doodle ALL the doodles. I have TOTALLY fallen in love with drawing! I guess I was trying to figure out a way to put all these passions together, running, writing, doodling. I ran one race in the fall and then an obstacle race with my brother, Survivor training, you know, just in case Probst calls. (You never know! It could happen!) 2024 was all about celebrating what I've done so far, and figuring out where to go from here.

So here I am today, mid-first month of a new year, a bit out of shape (ok, a LOT), with a pocketful of doodles and a new dream for this blog and some new running goals.. Running changed my life. Dramatic, but true. And I wanna get back to it, and to share that with you all. I also want to doodle all the doodles. And I wanna write. How will all that mesh together? We'll see.

I realize I've got a million miles to go to get to where I wanna back to where I was with my running, back to the girl who ran ALL THAT, but I did it once, I can do it again, and...

At least I know how to get there. One tiny step at a time.

One little habit after another.

However big that MOUNTAIN of doubt is, I can run though it.

Over it. Whatever.