I Need Some Motivation

Sometimes I find that I have a really bad mentality about running. Lately, it's been "get it over with". Rather than getting excited about running and spending some time for myself, I've been sort of dreading it. Is this a sign of being burnt out? Should I dial back the miles? Should I forget about getting a PR in the half in December?

I've had a great excuse for running on the treadmill so much - the weather has been awful here lately. Rainy, cold, and the sun sets at 4:30pm. Yesterday, I had a full day on my plate - to add to it, I overslept. My voice lesson, which was 45 minutes away, was at 10- and I woke up at 9:15. Whoops. I had to quickly stop at the bank before I left, and miraculously made it to my voice teacher's house only 5 minutes late.

Well, you'd think that was the end of my problems- nope. The lesson ran long, I had to get gas on my way to my acting lesson, and I had nothing to eat. I had to run inside the gas station and grab the only thing that sort of resembled a meal - a box of Pop Tarts. Pop Tarts! It was that or a bag of Doritos. I mean... ugh. I had to call the acting teacher about 5 minutes before class started to tell him I was running late. When I got there, he gave all of us a lecture about what being on time meant. Yikes. The lesson lasted for 3 hours, which I struggled through - two Pop Tarts isn't the best kind of fuel.

After that, I had to run 3 miles and go to a yoga class. I got home and figured - just get it over with. So, even though I could have run outside, I ran on the treadmill. 3 miles, nothing special. No speed work, no nothing. Just mindless running.

My yoga class went really well. I finally did a headstand, and when I got home, got to a place where I could actually lift my torso up and start lifting up my legs! Yesss. I've been working on that for this whole month. I'd love to be able to do a handstand, but my upper body just isn't strong enough yet.

Well, this afternoon, this is what it looks like outside:

Beautiful, right? I have 6 miles on the docket to complete today and I'm just not feeling the motivation to go out there and run. I know it's cold, I know it'll be an hour of running (how funny that 4 hours of running seems like a lifetime ago) and I kind of just want to sit here and work until my yoga class at 6.

What's wrong with me?? Shouldn't I just be itching to go run outside?? Why am I so unmotivated? Is it because I'm about to go home for Thanksgiving? Is it because I'm stressed about taking our engagement pictures next week? (We finally booked a photographer - score!) Is it just completely unrelated and I'm doing too much running?

Le SIGH. Any motivation tips?

5 Miles of Conan

On Monday, I felt so blegh. I woke up to type up yesterday's post, and then continued to sit on my ass all day and do nothing. No running, no cleaning for when my mom arrives, no laundry, no shower, no taking my car to the shop. Nada.

JW called me around 4 and asked if I wanted to go to IKEA when he got home, since neither of us had rehearsal that night. We had just been talking about how to make our apartment feel like our apartment rather than just an apartment we both live in (there is a distinction, I promise) and the IKEA bug had bit him at work. I figured he'd get home between 5 and 6, we'd go to the gym to get our work outs in (I had 5 miles that I convinced myself I'd only do on the treadmill at this point, and he had his Insanity workout for the day), and then we'd clean up and go to IKEA before it closed at 9.

Well friends, he didn't get home until 7, and after a lot of debating, I decided to further postpone my workout so we could get to IKEA before it closed. Of course we spent two hours there looking, debating, and getting ideas, and left the store empty handed. Of course. And of course, we were both dying of hunger by the time we left so we ended up doing the only thing that seemed sensible at the time: go to Jack in the Box.

So, if you're keeping tally at home, that's fast food PLUS no running PLUS no new furniture PLUS no cleaning, etc etc. I sure felt like a rockstar of a human being!

Jolene is a rockstar. That wig is a rockstar.

But then I realized... this is just my body telling me that I needed a proper rest day. What about my "real" rest day, on Sunday? I spent 3 hours in performance-mode, not resting. When was my last rest day, REALLY? I checked my calendar to find out. If you don't count Whale Watching on September 6, (I don't, since we woke up really early and were walking around all day), I hadn't had a full rest day (no rehearsal, no teaching, no running) since AUGUST 23! That's 3 and a half weeks of constant movement and no resting! No wonder I was feeling burnt out. I needed a break.

And you know what, even after the fast food and no running, I still weighed the same as I did yesterday, and the day before that. So there.

This morning I got myself out of bed feeling refreshed, but still couldn't muster up the energy to physically go outside to go run. I fell back to my original plan and went to run on the treadmill.

5 Miles in 45:53. Not bad!

I bumped that sucker up to 6.0 for the whole run!

As always, Conan keeps me going.

Lots of conflicting numbers. Who knows how far or fast I ran? I tried to change the calibration on the app to reflect what the treadmill said, but then it suddenly said that I didn't have negative splits anymore. So I decided that the app was actually right and the treadmill was the one that was wrong. So I suppose I ran 5.44 miles instead of just 5?

I'm feeling more motivated today. I have the laundry running, about 10 unread magazines have been purged from the apartment, and one of the counters has been dusted. Progress, y'all!

Chipotle is the Best Motivator

BOOM!

Perfect weather!

I got this close to getting those negative splits I've been aiming for. Alas - had I been 9 seconds faster, I would have nailed it! I really need to work on not going out too fast. Now, I know all those 8's may seem super slow to you speedy racers, but damn, that's fast for me. When I first started running, I started out at barely an 11 minute pace, and I yes yes I know you have to start somewhere, but usually anything under 9 min/mile is pushing it for me.

Knowing that a 5K is .1 miles longer, and basing it off the average time of 8'33" (fastest this week!!), my 5K time would have been about 26:34, which is faster than my very first Turkey Trot! And this wasn't even a race! And it was mostly uphill! This is how I felt afterwards:

Another picture of my sweaty face (and sweat stains) - again, you're welcome.

I'm definitely going to try to incorporate more hills into my runs to get ready for San Francisco. I'm eager for Nike to release the course map so I can adequately gauge how intensely I need to train on hills, but until then, I can just make it my goal to add as many hills as I can. Although, it must be said that this run didn't have many flats runs on it - mostly either uphill or downhill.

Before my run, I ate this:

http://www.larabar.com/products/chocolate-chip-cookie-dough

I'm not even sure if I can count that as my fuel source for my run, because I ate it about 3 hours before I went outside. I really wanted to go run earlier, but I kept pushing the time back because I felt tired and unmotivated.

Motivation is really becoming a problem for me - even just getting up out of my chair! Sometimes people say you just need to get dressed in your work out clothes and then it's automatic, but for me I just got dressed and then sat right back down and procrastinated some more.

By the time my boyfriend got home, I had migrated to lying on the couch in a lazy Friday afternoon haze. The only way he could coax me off the couch was by promising we would go to Chipotle when I got back from my run- boy did that get me out the door! What a great guy :). So, I could say it was the Larabar that made me run so fast... but it also might have been the promise of delicious Chipotle in my belly.

Well deserved and delicious chicken/steak salad! YUM.

So ends Week 1 of training! I have 2 rest days ahead of me that I'll be using to stretch and clean my damn apartment - I'll feel so much better after all of that is done!

Do you have a magic, pre-run bar/meal that you eat to ensure an awesome workout? 

Running Woes: The Beginning

I thought it best to start out with not necessarily why I run, because I feel like that's another post entirely, but more importantly how I got into running. In high school, I used to view running as insane - it seemed monotonous and all I really heard about it was that it was hard. So, naturally, I didn't view it as something I wanted to try. Besides, I was already active from dancing 10 hours a week, so I didn't really have time.

This is how I used to imagine I would feel running a marathon.

I remember going to the gym for the first time when I was 16 with my boyfriend. Is that weird that I'd never stepped foot inside a gym before that? He certainly thought it was. Anyways, after side-eyeing the complicated machines, I let out a sigh of relief when he said that we should warm up by running 10 minutes on the treadmill. Sure, a treadmill, no problem! I thought.

With the treadmill set to 5.0, at no incline (so the belt was moving under me, rather than propelling myself off of the belt), I started really struggling around 3 minutes. Savvy treadmill users will know that 5.0 speed is roughly a snail's pace, or just under 5 miles an hour. How could I possibly run 10 minutes in a row without stopping, let alone 26.2 miles?

A cheetah, I was not. Roughly 5 years later, after I had left my hometown dance studio, tiptoed into the world of college, and realized I couldn't keep my physique without doing at least some kind of exercise, I would run on the treadmills at the university gym, and dabbled (I'm a serious addict of dabbling) in the fitness classes. These went okay, but seemed mostly like work, not fun.

The idea of actually running a marathon came into my brain from my dear friend and who was to be my future (now past) roommate, Amanda. When we first met, she told me that running a marathon was on her bucket list and that she had started training for a half. Talking to her got me amped up about it, and the seed was officially planted in my brain.

(Cue Inception BRRRRWAARRRMMMM sound) About a year later, still rooming with Amanda, we were living in a house in North Austin and I decided it was a good idea to start my outdoor-running regime. I had just finished my semester of study abroad in France and, in addition to life experiences and wine knowledge, I also acquired a good 15 lbs. So I figured it would be a good a time as any to start running. In March. In Texas. I might also mention that where we lived, the area was about 90% cement. My friends, lacing up my shoes and plowing out into the Texas sun with relatively no outdoor running experience was NOT a good idea. I ran a pathetic mile around our little block and just about died from the heat, again wondering what the hell I was thinking.

the lonely and desolate Texas road

So you must wonder where my desire to run a marathon after all the negative thoughts? Stay tuned for Part 2...