Motivation

In 44 days I will be running my first half marathon. 44 DAYS! Part of me wishes I could run it tomorrow, but realistically I know I still need to put in a bit more time training.

For the last couple of months I've been training 3 days a week with the Running Room, as well as squeezing in another 1-2 runs a week on my own. I have learned so much, but still feel I need to be more conditioned.

Every Thursday evening before we head out for our run, we have a half hour clinic. A professional comes in a talks with us about a different aspect of running. We've learned about the importance of proper nutrition while training, about stretching, how to run hills, and how to avoid injury to name a few. So tonight was another great night, with an incredible speaker. We listened to a sports psychologist who has run three Ironmans, numerous marathons (she just finished the New York Marathon) and oodles of Halfs. She was talking about motivation and what motivates us to run.

Interesting. I suppose I never really thought about why I want to run a half marathon, just that I do. She listed off a few reasons for what shouldn't motivate us to run, such as losing weight (you may lose weight at first, and then plateau, and if you don't keep up running the weight will creep up rather quickly, and you will feel like a failure)
She also said that running for someone else's approval, or trying to impress your spouse, family, friends etc. will only lead to failure and frustration, because really, they don't care! Her point being, is you have to run for YOU!

So, why do I run?

I run to:
* clear my head
* be out in nature (I cannot stand the treadmill!)
* push the limits of my body
* think through problems
* I enjoy the social aspect of running, but I also really enjoy being alone

She also asked how we would like to feel when we finished our race. This was a tough one for me.

I really just want to prove to myself that I can do it... and feel good.

Running is 95% mental. As our speaker said tonight, it's really not that hard, you're just putting one foot in front of the other :-)

I liked that. It's all about keeping a positive attitude and being okay with any possible outcome of the race.

Thanks for reading!

Much love,

larajane