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Motivation. (Read 900 times)

    Hello everyone. I just thought I'd ask the question of how all of you keep yourself motivated. I find that I am usally eager to go for a run. Heck although it often hurts; I still love it. My motivational trouble often comes after a rest day. I find that I need to push myself. Sometime it is easyer than others, but I almost always need to push myself. I have to admit that once I am out there, I am fine; loving it as I most always do. So tell me how do you keep motivated?
    Daddy's littel girl.
    Wingz


    Professional Noob

      Hi, nite_runner! I'm guessing from your screen name and the fact that it's 4am that you (like me) stay up all night... <g> Somehow I psychologically hooked the rising sun/increasing light in with "it's time to go for a run" so that when I see it getting light out I'm anxious to get out there. I don't know how to tell you to do that, so here's some other ideas: A lot of running groups run first thing in the morning, like at 6am. If you get hooked into one of them and make a few buddies who will give you a hard time if you don't show up, it's pretty easy to drag yourself out there to do it. Peer pressure's great sometimes! You can make it fun - plan a "special" run for yourself once a week. I like to go on some of the trails around here. Unfortunately, the park doesn't open until 8, so I have to wait another 4 hours today, but that's where I'm headed later. If you can find something you look forward to, you don't have to "force" it. You say "it often hurts." Perhaps you're training too hard? I'm of the school that "no pain, no gain" is WRONG. Slowing my pace WAY down to accomodate heart-rate training has made running MUCH more enjoyable for me. It doesn't hurt, I have been able to increase my milage without injury, and I know that the increased time I'm able to spend is doing a far greater benefit than what I'd get out of running faster. I also have found that it's increased my desire to go out for a run so that it's actually a "forcing" to make me take a day OFF now, instead of having to force myself to get out there and run. One other tip that often works for people is to pick a specific race and train for it. Sometimes just remembering "I'm training for the XXX race" is motivation in itself. I don't know what your running or racing history is, but if you've not raced anything before, I'd suggest picking a 5K that's about 2-3 months off and going for that. Races are a lot of fun and a great way to stay motivated! Good luck! Janell</g>

      Roads were made for journeys...

        I have been looking for a club; havn't found one yet in the area. Hopfully I will. There arn't many ava;ible races in this area without driving a bit. However one of the few that we do have is coming up this comming october. It is called the big sur river run and is a 10k race. I am considering that one. There are also two marathons each year, and a 5k/10k on new years day. That's about it for running only events. We do have a few triathalongs including the sea otter classic. I wish they offered a 5k or 10k foot race in there. Still it is a bueatiful area with lots of great senic trails. Maybe I'll consider the river run race a littel more seriously. I'm only running about 6 miles a week right now. There's plently of time to build up before the race.
        Daddy's littel girl.
        Wingz


        Professional Noob

          10K by Oct should be doable for most people, even starting out at 6 mpw. That's 6 more than a lot of people do, right? Smile A 10K in Oct. is one of the goals I'm currently shooting for. That and a HM in Nov. (Which may or may not be doable for me. I'm overuse injury prone so have to take it really easy in my training.) Just curious - where do you live? I think Eric's trying to put some sort of geographic group thingie together to help people get connected, but I don't know how it's going to work or what'll happen to those who aren't in bigger cities.

          Roads were made for journeys...

          Mile Collector


          Abs of Flabs

            A lot of running groups run first thing in the morning, like at 6am. If you get hooked into one of them and make a few buddies who will give you a hard time if you don't show up, it's pretty easy to drag yourself out there to do it. Peer pressure's great sometimes!
            I can attest to that! I get up earlier on Saturday mornings than any other day of the week so I can go running with my club. I'm not a morning person so getting up before dawn can be tough. Nothing like knowing that they'll be waiting for me at the parking lot to get me out of bed. As for getting back into after a day off, maybe you should run a little slower to ease yourself back into it. The worst thing you can do is force yourself to go out and then end up hating running altogether.
              I live in monterey california. Bueatiful area, but small in some ways. I am trying to run a littel slower, maybe I can then work on a littel more distance in time.
              Daddy's littel girl.
              Wingz


              Professional Noob

                http://www.geocities.com/wnlrunr/WNLRApplication11-30.pdf Monterey Bay Wednesday Night Laundry Runner's Club. 831-601-6058. (Phone # might be good or not, I just got it from the web.) Check it out! They say on their application that you can go to races with them, that they'll email you about local events, that they have team clothing, and that they are the only running club in the Monterey/Salinas area. I don't know if it's true or not, but if it is it sounds like that's the way to go... Happy hunting!

                Roads were made for journeys...

                  Wow thanks..... I'm going to try and contact them. I was just at the web site, sounds pretty cool. I;m not sure I work around the hours though. I need to somehow run around my work, and my wife's. Whe she is working I am waching opur littel wonder. So most of the time I am running around 10pm. I may be able to run with them on saterday though. But it sounds like way to far of a run for me at this point.... We'll have to see what turnes up from my email to them......
                  Daddy's littel girl.