How To Get Motivated To Run When You Don’t Feel Like It

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If you’ve run long enough, at some point you’ve had the feeling that you just didn’t want to go out on a particular run. Maybe there was a time when turning off your alarm and rolling back into your sheets sounded like the best thing ever. Or maybe it was early in the week and you rationalized that you could postpone your run because you have time to make it up later in the week.  Or maybe you don’t have a race coming up and it’s easy to convince yourself that you can miss a workout here and there.

Or maybe you just wussed out.

Image Courtesy of Feelart; freedigitalphotos.net

Image Courtesy of Feelart; freedigitalphotos.net

Regardless of the reason, every runner has felt like not running at some point.

So what’s it going to take to get you up and out the door? Why are you – the person who at some point made the conscious decision to label yourself a “runner” going to follow through with that decision? The next time your motivation is running low, remind yourself of these three things:

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3 Simple Tweaks That Can Make This Weekend’s Long Run Easier

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I first got the idea for this post a few months ago as I was walking through the GEICO corporate offices for my weekly Toastmasters meeting and saw this sign:

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I’m not sure if the HR rep who walks me to my meetings was pulling my leg (I’m not a GEICO employee and can’t be in the building without an escort), but according to her those signs were fastened to almost every common area door in that building to prevent people from running into each other or worse – bonking people on the other side of the door in the face.
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Why I Don’t Go To The Gym and 3 Reasons You Probably Don’t Need To Either

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For a long while, I considered taking advantage of the discount a local gym offers my company. It was relatively cheap, close to work and I figured it would be a great way to build up the cross training portion of any race training I would be doing. For reasons I couldn’t put my finger on, I never could pull the trigger on joining the gym.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear John Pierre, trainer to Ellen DeGeneres, countless CEOs, musicians and other celebrities, give a talk and he made not going to the gym sound like a good thing. Pierre talked a lot more about fitness and nutrition than what I’ll cover here, but here are some of the take a ways:
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Beer: The Best Recovery Drink?

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Some of the better runners I know are also some of the most avid beer fans. It seems like Image Courtesy of Idea Go/ freedigitalphotos.netthey all talk about the latest and greatest IPA or the little-known hole in the wall place with the best craft beers on draught. Some runners brew it and some even set up their long runs to end up at their favorite watering hole. At least in my little corner of the world, good runners seem to really love their beer. For awhile there, I was beginning to think there was correlation between beer drinking and running well.

Turns out, that assumption may not be entirely wrong.
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6 Tips For Running on Business Trips

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Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

 

At first blush, trying to stay on schedule while traveling for work sounds like it might be difficult, especially if your work includes late night dinner meetings and/or early morning breakfast meetings and presentations. By planning ahead of time, you can fit it all in, but you’ll have to be as careful about scheduling your runs as you are about scheduling your appointments.

Obviously you want to keep in mind that you’re traveling on your company’s dime and that your work responsibilities take priority, but that doesn’t mean you have to put your running schedule on hold. Here are some tips that have helped me get my weekly mileage in while on the road.
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Running in San Diego Part 2

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In part one of running in San Diego, I talked about how easy it was to get excited about running there every day. In this part, let’s take a look at the good and the bad of being a runner in southern California.

The Good

Runners in San Diego are in a great spot for running. Just ask them.

Seriously though, whether I was running along the ocean in Carlsbad or along the water near downtown San Diego, the weather and scenery played a big part in how enjoyable all of my runs were. California also does a good job of accommodating their robust running population. Bike and running paths are relatively easy to find and in my relatively small sampling, there was as many runners out and about than I recall seeing back east…especially this early in the year.
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Running in San Diego part 1

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I’ve been in California for the last four days at a conference and in between work obligations  I’ve had a lot of time to think about running. The conference was a blast and while I’m energized and ready to get back to work, some of the inspiration and information I gathered can be applied to your running goals as well.

I hope you enjoy my thoughts on running in San Diego in part 2, which will be ready in the next day or two, but for now, I wanted to share one of the highlights of my trip. On Saturday morning I ran with my aunt Becky’s running group along the coast in Carlsbad. I was kind of bummed when one of the members of the running group told me that the Carlsbad 5000 was being run the next day because it sounded like a fun race, but it would have been impossible to get to the start of the conference I was in town for if I had run it.
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What Toddlers Can Teach Us About Becoming Runners

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If the contents of this post don’t motivate you to run, imagining these babies in your kitchen, calling your name should do the trick.

If you’re thinking of taking up running and are apprehensive for any number of reasons, I have good news you for you.

You’ve already started.

No, you haven’t been running in your sleep and no you haven’t developed a case of running amnesia. You’ve already accomplished one of the most basic and fundamental foundations to being a runner – you learned to walk.

While I may have written the first part of this post with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, there is more than a kernel of truth to all of this. When you were a kid scooting around on all fours, you were bound and determined to walk. You weren’t going to let anything stop you, and one day you did it.  There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle in a toddler learning to walk, but for all intents and purposes, that was the first major goal you accomplished. Here is a quick look at how you did it.
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6 Tips to Make Sure You Wake Up Early and Run

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Every runner with a family, a job or any other daily time constraints will eventually have to decide when they’ll fit their runs into their schedule. For some of us, the 9 to 5 (or 6 or 7) workday prohibits us to fit a run in mid day. Running at night is an option, but for me there are too many variables. Between the uncertainty of not being sure of when we’ll actually get home to figuring out dinner to helping with homework, once all is said and done, running after 9pm isn’t my cup of tea.

That’s why I run in the morning. 

Running in the morning is a great way to start your day. After a good run, you feel alert and awake. It really can set the tone for your day and I always feel full of energy at work if I’ve started the day with a 5-6 mile run.

Whether or not you consider yourself a morning person, you can get up and run in the morning. Here are some tips I use to make sure I get out the door and run.
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And I Would Run 1,000 Miles…

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With apologies to the Proclaimers’ for paraphrasing their hit from the 90s (and to you for putting that song in your head), I’m officially announcing my New Year’s Resolution (better late than never).1000+ Goal Image

Here it is: I will run over 1,000 miles in 2013.

How far is 1,000 miles?

1,000 miles is a long way no matter how you slice it. To put it in perspective, if I got in my car and drove 1,000 miles away from where I live in Bethesda, Maryland, I could almost make it to either Springfield, Missouri, Miami, Florida or just short of Halifax, Novia Scotia almost 15 hours later.

I don’t know about you, but spending 15 hours in a car headed in any direction – or for any destination – seems pretty daunting.
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