Motivation

26 May 2009


Here is lovely photo of me and Nicky from my running group taking part in the Flagey 6k on Sunday
















Keeping up your motivation to run is tough. There are days when it's raining, days when its too hot, days when you're tired and some days when you really really just can't be bothered. Some days all of the above happens at the same time.

Take yesterday evening for example. It was beautiful in Brussels, perfect running weather and the park where I like to run is just down the road. But I can't get going. I can't even bring myself to put on my gym kit. I consider other forms of exercise: I know there's a step aerobics class going on at my gym. Again: I can't be bothered.

For most people the lack of motivation is mainly associated with actually getting out the door. Whether you are putting off going to the gym, avoiding a run or ducking out of a swim, the rot sets in at home, where the cozy sofa and the Six Feet Under box set beckon. The trick is to find ways of getting past the initial "I don't feel like it" feeling, knowing that once you get out there, you'll be fine. A very effective trick I used to use was to change into my running kit, which almost always forced me out the house.

And so to this morning, it is raining in Brussels, and I am still unable to get anywhere near motivated, so I get up and don my running kit. I pump up the i-pod, set the sports watch going and I run out of the house. Admittedly I don't get very far, as the rain comes down harder and I'm really just not in the mood, but I am feeling a remix of Madonna's Miles Away and that manages to spur me on for ALMOST 2.5 miles before I jack it in and come home.

Alexander James writes an interesting article in the Times about music, motivation and working out, here: Music holds the key to working out successfully


Ran: 2.48 miles (pathetic)
Time: 22 mins and 59 second (see above)
Average pace per mile: 9 mins 14 seconds
Calories: 261

The Big One: 22 Miles

Thursday 1st May

And so to the last long run of the training. Setting off to Richmond alone on the train I felt scared. I was weighed down by lucozade, water and jelly babies and I had over three and a half hours of solid running to go.

On reaching Richmond I decided to run up the hill from the station to the park. It's steep. Luckily I had The Incredible Sounds of the Dreem Teem garage sound track to keep me going... The ipod ran out after the first hour which was a bit annoying but ok.

I ran across the park and back, round the park, doubled back on myself and then ran across the park and back again.

Weather was a bit of a challenge. It hailed around mile six. I got upset and almost stopped. Pushed on through. At the end stopping felt funnier than carrying on. I seemed to be fine apart from one massive blister on my left foot and an achey bunion. I felt a huge sense of achievement and really now believe I will be able to do the marathon.

What was surprising was the amount of water I was able to intake without needing the loo. I drank at least one litre before I started and then another litre on the way around. Could have taken more on board if I'd had it.

Rewarded myself with a holiday in France and no running for five straight days.

Ran: 22.04 miles

Time: 3 hours 39 minutes, 12 seconds

Time per mile: 9 minutes 56 seconds

Calories: 2317

Jelly Babies At Miles: 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19.5 (low point), 20.

And runnin' runnin'

Monday 14th - Friday 18th April

This week has been exhausting. I've managed nothing more than a few runs between the office and home.

Saw Jeremy Irons playing Harold Macmillan in Never So Good at the National Theatre. Macmillan was the British prime minister from 1957-63 and the play looks back at his life, revealing a bevvy of interesting facts for those of us who haven't read his biography. I didn't know Macmillan was wounded five times in World War I or that he survived a plane crash in World War II. Jeremy Irons was Very Good, as was the actor who plays Churchill and duckface from Four Weddings and a Funeral. Highly Recommended, especially if you can get the £10 tickets offer from Travelex.

Also watched the Italian film My Brother Is An Only Child, which follows two squabbling brothers navigating the political ideologies of 1960s Italy. The older hot brother is a communist, the younger, gangly one a fascist. They fight, they make up, they fight some more. They are a metaphor for the entire country. One dies, the other comes to terms with himself and his politics. Beautiful. Thought provoking given my current heightened interest in Italian politics. Could have been half an hour shorter.

Uphill Struggle

Monday 31st March

One of the things about training for a marathon is that it becomes increasingly difficult to fit in anything else. Training swallows your life whole, like a snake digesting a mouse. Thusfar I’ve chosen to prioritize my life over my training, but with less than eight weeks until D-day something had to give.

And so I found myself hatching a Master Plan.

Invited to Monday night dinner in Finchley? Not a problem, I’ll run to it: putting in the miles, saving time and arriving for supper with a healthy glow. Genius.

A quick look at walkit.com suggests a route of 8.2 miles from my office to my friend’s house near Finchley Central. So far so good: Quick change at work. Back pack on. Ipod in. And we’re off.

One of the great things about running a route you've never run before is the sense of freshness: the thrill of taking in new sights and the slightly sick feeling when you worry you're getting lost.

One of the not-so-great things about running a route you’ve never run before is that it’s fairly easy to underestimate the amount of pollution or the number of hills you’ll encounter.

And hills and pollution there were aplenty. In fact, this entire route was on an upwardly-tilted main road.

Setting out up Gray’s Inn Road in the sun shine I felt pretty positive. Cutting down the side of Kings Cross Station, the route took me past disused London Underground station York Road – which sits between Kings Cross and Caledonian Road on the Piccadilly Line and closed in 1932 – and into the hinterland of “redevelopment” that sits behind Kings Cross.

The long and not-particularly good-looking Brecknock Road made up the next stretch, delivering me to Tufnell Park tube station, which is encased in that distinctive and very attractive Edwardian red tiling that I like.

After that the super-hill set in. Dartmouth Park HILL is a hill and a half. A long, protracted, seemingly never-ending beast of a hump.

After what seemed like eternity, I reached Waterlow Park – one of London’s most underrated green spaces, perhaps because of its steep hill location. It’s 26-acres and was given to the public as a "garden for the gardenless" by London’s then-Lord Mayor, Sir Sydney Waterlow in 1889. To the south, the park borders Highgate Cemetery, resting place of a plethora of famous dead people, including Karl Marx. Passing up through the park I paused for breath at Lauderdale House, a neoclassical style building which took its name from the Earl who first lived there. Now an arts centre and tea room, its hill-top location affords visitors a jaw-dropping view over London.

Onward and upward, through miles of residential wasteland and across the hellish North Circular, I eventually landed in Finchley, just in time for sausage and cabbage mash, bracingly strong coffee and a white chocolate chip cookie. Yum.

Ran: 8.2 miles, mostly uphill.

Felt: The burn of those hills, Over full after supper.

Ate:
Porridge with banana and honey
Hot cross bun
Niçoise salad (no anchovies)
Apple, grape and yogurt salad
Sausage and cabbage mash
White chocolate chip cookie