Motivation Without A Race?

Lately I seem to be at a loss for words when it comes to this blog.  I can write for days about the house, but when it comes to running… some days I don’t even feel like a runner.  I feel like this girl who used to be a runner and had to stop, and wants to get back into it but can’t.  And yes I know, the reason I am not getting back into it is because I am not making it a priority.

Because my workouts as of late have consisted of complete weekends spent installing our new floors.

Ralph says sorry for the blurry picture, he just “doesn’t get” the iphone I guess…

And yes I consider that a workout.  Only a few times in my life have my hamstrings felt so sore and one of those times was probably after a marathon.  And after two days of installing floors.  Ouch.

Oh yea and a little bit because of bronchitis.

What’s that?  Basically in the two weeks of January I spent more days sick than healthy.  What started as the tiniest of tiny coughs turned into being sick on the couch, days off of work, and a less than fun bought with bronchitis.

So what started out as “Hell yes January time to get back into the gym”, became, “Holy crap I can’t move and/or breathe there is no WAY I am setting foot in the gym”.  Add to the fact that every time I leave work and look up at the gym (my work gym is on an open 2nd floor) it is S-U-P-E-R crowded.  Thankfully, every morning I wake up feeling just a tiny bit closer to normal, although I really want to give my body a change to get back to normal before putting it through the stress of exercise.  I know, having been through this before that rest is SO important.

So even though I haven’t been running, and was getting over being sick I was reading my latest copy of Runner’s World before bed the other night (Yay for sticking to my resolutions and reading before bed to decompress!) when I came across this:

Thanks Runner’s World for basically telling me “do not race this year”.

Ever since getting hurt I have been wondering when everything will go back to normal.  Just reading about running makes me miss the days when going out for 5 or so miles before breakfast was as easy and routine as brushing your teeth in the morning.  I’m not there.  I’m a lot way from there.

While Ralph already has his entire 2013 race calendar planned out, I am constantly wondering, “what’s my next race”.  I’m still very much in the mindset that I don’t want to race just for fun.  I know I won’t be happy with the results and more so, I’m afraid that I will push myself to hard in training and get hurt again.  Runner’s World is right, I really REALLY need to take this year to get better, no matter how slow it takes.  If I sign up for a race, no matter the distance, I’m going to want to do well.  Sure I will plan smart and take my time base building, but deep inside me I crave the speed work.  I crave the workouts I used to do years ago when life was less complicated and the only thing I had to worry about after work was which running shorts to wear.

What I constantly struggle with, and have probably since the day I started running, is my main source of motivation comes from training with a purpose.  And that purpose is a race.  I know it’s silly, because I do truly love running.  I love getting amped up for a run, I love the feeling you get while running, and I love the feeling of finishing a run, even if it was a bad one.  But with out a race, with out a structured training plan pushing me towards a concrete goal, I have a really tough time making running a priority.  The pressure to do well in a race keeps me sticking to my schedule.  Otherwise it’s so easy to think “what does it matter if I skip this one run”.

So help me out here, for once I am not the one with all the great motivation and ideas and inspiration.  I need to spend this year learning about me, and how to get myself a healthy runner with out getting hurt again or putting pressure on myself to do well in a race.  How am I supposed to convince myself that it’s a good idea to get out of bed in the morning and go to the gym with nothing to train for?  Perhaps the knowledge that if I don’t do it now, it’s only going to get harder the longer I wait.  I’m only going to get more out of shape the longer I put this off.  I guess when I put it that way it helps kick me into gear a little bit.

How do you stay motivated to run with out a race?   

xx Sara

Tagged as: Injuries, Motivation, Recovery, Training