Motivation and Flexibility--Two Very Important Things!

Week three of my half marathon training is winding down. How does the time go so fast?!  Yesterday I was supposed to run 5 miles but the weather was so cold and winds were gusting up to 30 miles per hour so I adjusted my plan and took yesterday off and will run on Sunday instead.  I’ve learned that it’s important to be flexible, which is sometimes difficult for me and my Type A personality.

I still fight the urge every morning to stay in bed and skip my workout but I know I’ll be mad at myself if I do that.  The long term goals I have are more important than getting a little bit more sleep.  In order to keep my long term goals in the forefront of my mind at 4:45 a.m. , I decided to put one of my Rock n’ Roll Las Vegas race medals on top of my phone so when my clock goes off I have to move the medal to turn it off.  There’s no better motivation than that! 

I’ve been getting emails lately about this year’s Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon in Vegas and they literally give me goosebumps thinking about how much fun I’ve had the past 2 times I’ve done it and how much I’m looking forward to going back this year. 

I’ve been working on my flexibility this past week with Piyo workouts.  They are the perfect blend of strength and flexibility training.  I know that being more flexible and elongating my muscles will help with my running and recovery time between runs as well as prevent the chance of injury.  That is definitely something I’ve overlooked in the past. 

Tomorrow morning I’m doing some speed work, which is not my favorite but at least it’s a shorter workout.  My goal is to finish my half marathons this year in under 2 hours.  I’ve got some work to do if I’m going to make that a reality but I’m up for the challenge!

What workouts have you been doing?  Are you training for any upcoming races?  Tell me, I’d love to know!

Dedication

It’s week 2 of my half marathon training and I’ve done a great job this week making sure to follow my training plan and getting all the miles in before the sun rises.  That is, until this morning.  Something about knowing the spring-like weather that we’ve been spoiled with the last few days was over and it was back to cold and windy conditions at 5am made me decide to trade in my running shoes for my dumbbells.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love weight training, (it’s actually my all-time favorite type of exercise) but I promised myself I’d follow the training plan exactly as written and already in week 2 I’ve let myself down.  I didn’t let myself spend much time being hard on myself, though.  I decided that as soon as supper was over and I had a chance to catch up on how my girls’ and my husband’s day was, I was going to lace up my running shoes, bundle up with a couple of warm layers and get a few miles in.

Sometimes it’s hard to be disciplined but at the end of the day, that’s the only way to reach your goals.  When I ran tonight in the cold rain, I thought about how fortunate I was to be able to run instead of thinking about how nice it would be to be at home by the fire watching HGTV (my weakness!)

So the next time you’re tempted to let yourself off the hook, just remember that you have a choice and the choice you make will either bring you closer to your goals are further away from them.

A favorite quote of mine is:  “The pain of discipline is nothing compared to the pain of regret”.