I had this great idea for Chicago Marathon training that I’d send the girls to the Lego Store and have them create and buy a bunch of mini-figures (there’s a station where you can build your own people from a big console with all different parts in there) and then secretly wrap them up or something so that at the end of each long run I’d be opening up a new surprise mini-figure and I’d get like 15 such people by marathon day.

It was kind of convoluted and it never really came together other than the idea stage and as it turned out I didn’t need it…almost like I enjoy the training for the training and I don’t need any extra incentives.

Still, I like the idea of incentives, like when I ran around Framingham finding the wooden soldiers they put out in different locations every December or the next year when I ran Every Street in Framingham.

So I’ve proactively taken a step to incentivize my next training, whenever that happens:

I bought this Lego Advent Calendar to come as close as possible to the idea I mentioned up top there.

Now, it’s not a perfect idea - let’s just say for the sake of an example that I am going to be running a certain marathon in April…it will be a little out of season to be opening Christmas-themed Legos in February and March.

But it’s better than nothing.

For the past few years I’ve enjoyed the Marvel Lego Advent Calendar and getting little Captain America and Spider-Man mini-figures and the like…but it does not appear that they are putting out a Marvel-themed Advent calendar this year, so this is what we got.

And I don’t mind re-purposing this one for training incentive rather than counting down to Christmas.

I’ll tell you what though - I’ve realized as I put this plan into action that any Advent calendar can become a training calendar.

As long as you don’t wait too long, I suppose, one of the chocolate or food ones could be used for the same purpose.

I saw a Bluey one at Target that I was tempted to get but that might be a Bluey bridge too far for me.

But, see, that’s Advent thinking. It might be perfect for training. We’ll see.

All I’m saying is I highly encourage you to get those 24 little doors and give yourself a little treat for your next training session.