As much as I love running, sometimes it seems like the last thing I want to do, or the last thing I should do at that moment. There are mornings I wake and feel so comfortable in bed that getting another hour or two of sleep seems like a much better idea than getting in a few miles. Or maybe it's the afternoon, or after work and I'm feeling sluggish, rushed, stressed or any combination of the three. There have been plenty of times where I've actually dreaded going running. Some of those times I've given in. Over the years there have been quite a few times I've given in to the Debbie Downer attitude. Recently though I've come to realize that so far every time that I've managed to shake some sense into Debbie and get my derriere out the door I've not once regretted it. The same is not true for the times I've let Debbie win. Take this past Tuesday as an example. The alarm went off at 5:30 stirring me from my glorious slumber. ~snooze~ "just ten more minutes". Ten minutes later the all to familiar and annoying "melody" of beeps accompanied by the low tone of the phone vibrating again interrupt my sanctuary of sleep. After a few moments of half asleep internal debate on whether or not to get out of my cozy warm bed I stretch out and slink out from under my covers and stumble to find my running clothes that I've set out the night before. Which by the way if I hadn't done, I definitely wouldn't have won the debate that took place moments before. I've found I need to have everything ready to go for the next morning like clockwork so that I have no excuses for not getting around early and quickly. After letting the dog out and giving him some food I'm out the door, into the garage and into the car. Sh!t where's my watch?!? I can't do half mile repeats without my watch I think to myself. Yes even after the careful planning of the night before I still managed to forget something. Oops. I scrambled back inside collected the forgotten watch and was back in the car. Welcome to Michigan winter; the roads are total crap. No asphalt here just a wintry mix of slush, snow and ice. This coupled with the press of the snooze button, and the forgotten watch has added up to arriving at Westerns indoor track ten minutes later than I wanted to. The previous week I cut my workout one repeat short due to time restraints and I was starting to stress that it might happen two weeks in a row! Never the less I ran my warm-up and started my repeats feeling somewhat fresh which was nice because I wasn't too pleased with the previous nights workout. (Monday night I struggled through 2.5 miles on the dreadmill at my parents house. I planned on knocking out 3-4 miles but not even the Billy Joel Pandora station could keep me content running on that contraption of boredom!) By the time I was finishing up my second repeat I had almost entirely forgotten about how rushed/stressed I was feeling. Now my mind was bouncing back and forth between upcoming tasks of the day, the pace I was running, and plans for the upcoming year. I felt great throughout the remainder of the workout, finishing all six repeats with time for a couple lap cool-down and some stretching. On my way to Panera to pick up a french toast bagel sandwich (my bribe to myself for getting up early and running) all I could think about was how great I felt and what an amazing feeling of accomplishment I had. I know some of you may be thinking "dude you got up a little early and ran a few laps....la di frickin da!" Well guess what for me it's a big accomplishment so eff off already! Ha ha. I'm just kidding I wouldn't say that. But seriously eff off. This is my blog and I'm not a morning person. So back to where I started, if you can find a way to silence that lazy ass inside of you who answers to the name of Debbie Downer then trust me you will soon be enjoying a delicious french toast bagel sandwich (or whatever else you bribe yourself with because seriously who would get out of bed early without some sort of bribe?) while realizing who AWESOME you are. So there you go. Tell that B!tch Debbie to zip it and go out and be awesome!
What do you do to motivate yourself when it seems like you're fighting an uphill battle against your inner demon?
No comments:
Post a Comment