How to Be Mindful When Running

It's okay to count to stay focused. For one thing, it gives you a quick idea of your pace if you're training for a race. I sometimes visualize what I'll do when I get home, which is the opposite of being mindful. Then I'll focus in on the moment. That period of not being mindful helps me get back into the run in a deeper way.

I have a different view with some limited data.
First, different techniques work for different people. Days' focus will vary as well.
I like being observant of surroundings including people. A friendly greeting is mostly appreciated especially by those without headphones. A slow, gradual start is helpful for me even after a brief warm up and some gentle stretching (yes I know the latest controversy but it's worked for me for almost 50 years).
I also like to do a few intervals at the end and then another stretch.
I've managed to avoid serious injuries for lo this many decades with this routine.
So enjoy your walk, run or sprint celebrating nature's and people's variety.

I agree with rk that the author doesn't get it. To be mindful while running is to be in the experience, not counting one two one two. It is to witness the plants, people, houses, dogs etc you run by because we experience each moment once only. It is to feel the pounding of your feet as you run, to hear and see the children in the playground you pass. When our minds fill with worry about other parts of our lives, the remedy is to use our senses to return to the life at hand. To strive for an "empty" mind is to miss the present moment. When I begin my runs with troubling worry about work, people, etc on my mind, I say aloud he names of trees and plants that I run by. As Ram Dass said, Be here now.

a problem with specification is that is leads to preoccupation and, for the runner so occupied, a distraction from the natural flow that time, distance and biochemistry bring without prompting or measuring...once the process starts it is, if left to itself, an inevitable one...one needs only to be available...counting, steps, or anything else, focuses consciousness inwardly and mitigates against the drift into oneness with surrounding colors and shapes...thoughts too, will come, naturally, invasive perhaps, if not willed, but not necessarily unhelpful, even if not entirely pleasant...think of them, rather, as emergent, as if coming out from hiding as we open up to the run, things we may not easily confront or even know with certainty will become known and combine or overlap or provoke, each one the next, and that is always helpful.

as for to urges to quit, barring distress, it's an easy thing to keep moving the goalpost (not to mention getting a lift from the laugh at the body-mind con that goes with the practice).

there is no zone that is not today's zone, is it made from thought, imagery (and an occasional near-hallucination, if you will), right there on the run, letting the run take you where it will.

a hint for anyone with difficulties in "letting go": try singing, an apparent distraction at first, but the effort, however humble, will summon memories, associations, emotions, etc., clearing pathways otherwise blocked.

Thank you. It was helpful to know where and how to begin meditating when (in my case) walking. Will try it today!!

As a very long-time runner this makes absolutely no sense. I want to be in my head while running, not make it empty. I work on so many things in my mind during my runs. Sometimes it's just one topic like going through chord changes on a song I'm learning for the hour or so that I'm running, other times it's only me and myself having a conversation in my head talking about whatever the moment brings. That's my idea of being mindful.

This is a tautology not an instruction.

To be "mindful" while running, be mindful while running. Thanks, congrats on manipulating yourself the exposure here and getting the graphic artist a paycheck.