I do not enjoy long car rides: too much sitting, paying attention to other cars, staving off boredom, and finding a place to pee. Yet on two recent long drives, I discovered it helps this mother runner to approach them like a long training run. On a 11.5-hour journey from Lexington, Kentucky, to New Jersey with my 20-year-old son in August, then a round-trip road trip from Portland to Yellowstone last week with my husband, Jack, I realized the parallels are plentiful—and I could “survive” the drives better if I brought my runner’s attitude to them. Allow me to share them with you. (And listen to today’s podcast for more analogies offered off-the-cuff by my savvy co-host Tish Hamilton.) 

John asleep, Momma driving

Don’t expect it to be over anytime soon.

There are many reasons why kids’ queries of, “Are we there yet?!” are maddening, not least of which is they build in an expectation that a long trek will be over soon. Newsflash: It won’t, so stop thinking it will be! As John and I set out from Kentucky, I calmly, silently reminded myself we had a full day ahead of us. Same holds true on longer training runs, I mentally fare better when I accept that I’ll be hitting the pavement for several hours instead of minutes. 

Appreciate the beauty along the way.

The adage, “it’s about the journey, not the destination,” resonates for a reason. For Jack and my 12.5-hour straight-shot-home from Yellowstone, I decided to treat it as an epic sightseeing tour—the mountains, valleys, and rivers of the northern Rocky Mountain states dazzled and delighted. 

Fuel (chickpea salad sandwich) in Walla Walla

Ease into it.

You’ve probably heard Dimity and me talk often on AMR Answers to run slower-than-race-pace for the first mile or two of an endurance race in the hopes of not burning too many proverbial matches too soon. Those words flooded my brain in the first hour or so of our homeward-bound drive: Since it was Montana, the speed limit was 80 miles per hour. Yet I just couldn’t force myself to push it any faster than 65 or 70. Maybe it was because there were no other vehicles to “pace” me, but our SUV felt like an extension of my body, and I wasn’t warmed up yet.

Coeur d’Alene street art

Break it up into chunks.

Whether you have a friend join you for the last four miles of a 12-miler or you run a route that includes loops of three different parks, dividing a bigger effort into smaller pieces makes it go by faster. Same with our drive to Yellowstone: Lunch in Walla Walla, Washington; an overnight in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and a night in Bozeman, Montana, before making our final push to the park.