Motivate me!

[CeilidhOnTheRun]

Okay, I know I really have to motivate myself, but I am having a tough go of it. January went well with sticking to walking, but I still didn't follow the planned number of walks, etc. Now I've let an entire week go by with only two short walks to and from an appointment.
I just can't seem to get back into a groove, no matter what I try.

I'm planning a longer walk this afternoon to make up for my lack of exercise all week, but then what? I need a plan and some sort of motivating factor.

[scrumhalfgirl]

Okay, I know I really have to motivate myself, but I am having a tough go of it. January went well with sticking to walking, but I still didn't follow the planned number of walks, etc. Now I've let an entire week go by with only two short walks to and from an appointment.
I just can't seem to get back into a groove, no matter what I try.

I'm planning a longer walk this afternoon to make up for my lack of exercise all week, but then what? I need a plan and some sort of motivating factor.

Do you have a pedometer? We have a 10,000 steps challenge going - that might be a good motivator!

[RA.]

For me, my motivator is that my pants that I bought in November for $90 won't do up. Anything like that that will get you out the door? Or the feeling you get when you get back home after?

I'm heading out the door now for 70 minutes. Want to commit to walking half of that time on the TM at home? Or outside, if you can. It's so warm out in comparison to the last while.

Also, you should check out the schedule for this week, and bring your skates to work and meet me for a skate.

[Kelodie]

I've started setting some daily objectives for myself. I put the objectives in writing in a Word table, and when I achieve my goal, the cell is green, when I achieve it partially, it's yellow and when I don't achieve it, it's red. Somehow, the visual really helps to motivate me. I want to see as much green as I can and as little red as possible.

I also took the pressure off myself. I'm under a lot of stress at work right now and I'm not going to add more stress in my personal life. So, if I don't achieve my objective because life happened, I let it go and think about the next objective.

Finally, like RA mentionned, my weight is a huge motivator for me right now. I lost 7lbs from being sick and I vowed not to gain it back.

[CeilidhOnTheRun]

I actually walked for a total of about 90 minutes today, I felt I needed to make up some lost time. 45 minutes during P's dance class and another 45 during B's.

I would love to join you for skating Ang! What time is the public skate again? Let me check my sched and get back to you.

[CeilidhOnTheRun]

Kelodie I love the visual record. I'll have to try that!

[Kelodie]

Kelodie I love the visual record. I'll have to try that!

Let me know if you want me to email you my record from last week. It works for me!

You could also try stickers or smily faces on a calendar, those really motivate me. I have kept my calendars from the past 4 years because I can't throw away pages of smily faces recording each training session (red is for runs, green is for bike, blue is for swims and pink is for strenght training/yoga).

Good luck!

[abhainn]

Kelodie I love the visual record. I'll have to try that!

Let me know if you want me to email you my record from last week. It works for me!

You could also try stickers or smily faces on a calendar, those really motivate me. I have kept my calendars from the past 4 years because I can't throw away pages of smily faces recording each training session (red is for runs, green is for bike, blue is for swims and pink is for strenght training/yoga).

Good luck!

I have 2 of those. A daytimer monthly planner that I write my scheduled runs in and then put sea themed stickers beside each completed run or workout, and then I have one of those big wall/desktop calendars where I put the run or workout once completed with a shiney smiley face. I love seeing all those faces at the end of the month

I don't keep the big one but this year I kept last years daytimer and started a new one. It's interesting to go back and see what I did last year before quitting training for the half I never did. It's a lasting record, that yes I did in fact run a 10k training run, and proof if I happen to never do it again.

Getting back into it this year after my month long hiatus involved first finding some kind of plan to follow. I'm not training for anything specific but I found last year that I like having my runs pre-planned for about the next 3 months so I know what is expected of me in the coming week. I don't look at it much further in advance though. I just follow what it says I need to do tomorrow and go from there. For the record - I'm doing the Hidgins spring training program, so that once it's done I'll be ready to jump into either 10k or 1/2 mary training for the summer.

Second thing I did was drag my sorry ass out of bed early in the morning and get the runs done before work. I have discovered that I'm just not reliable in following my plan if I wait until after work. It's not so much that I'm tired, or have anything pressing that needs to get done, I just don't have the mental capacity to do anything but park my butt on the nearest couch or in bed and watch mind numbing television or movies until bed time at 9 or 10.

[CeilidhOnTheRun]

True, I always have done better with a plan.

[Corpus Cani]

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyFn43G7HAQ

[Jwolf]

Mick- your link didn't work, but this should help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyFn43G7HAQ


I haven't listened to the whole thing yet.

[Corpus Cani]

Thanks Champ

[Jo-Jo]

Mick...powerful video.
Just finished watching it...and heading out for a 25km run.

[CeilidhOnTheRun]

Thanks for posting that Mick.
Truly inspirational.

[CeilidhOnTheRun]

This week I logged 20k of walking.

Twice I chose to hitch a ride into work with B.b and get out and walk the remainder of the trip to my office rather than bus it.
Today, i will create my own training plan of some sort. Enough talking about it!

[jzoom]

Do you track / log your walks and other workouts. I find when I force myself to log all my workouts that I'm more committed. Take logging to the next level by starting a blog or a website where you post your workouts. Don't think about the blog's success, but knowing you're publishing your efforts may motivate you.

[CeilidhOnTheRun]

Thanks jzoom. I was doing that, but ran into some issues with my log (& posting to my page). Am looking into new options.