Motivation

With my renewed commitment to getting healthy (I've lost count how many times I've renewed this commitment), I joined some groups on 3 Fat Chicks to keep myself accountable. One of them is a running support group for the Couch to 5k Program, so although I'm doing Couch to 10k I can still share my progress with others since the set-up is essentially the same.

Here is a recent post that I wrote in response to the quoted question that really struck close to how I'm feeling now:

Quote:

Originally Posted by L I guess the real reason I'm writing this long post is to find out if other people out there are doing the C25k strictly by themselves. And if so, how do they motivate themselves to do that? Do you ever feel anxious and awkward about it?

When I did C210k last winter, I did a lot of the runs on my own and I did feel awkward at first. I live in a very thin town so I stick out like a sore thumb as is. But running around made me feel even more out-of-place. I especially felt like a pansy the first week or so because the program only had me running for a minute at a time and it seemed so little!

But once I got through that and was running for longer distances I was huffing and puffing too much to care what anyone else thought about me. For the most part, my motivation stemmed from not wanting to lose all the fitness I had worked so hard to get.

Each time I stopped the program I had a decent reason (shin splints the first time, cut off part of my finger another year so getting my pulse too high was extremely painful, and a knee injury last year stopped all forms of exercise for a couple of months). Getting restarted from scratch really sucked, and it took a long time for me to get to the point where I somewhat "enjoyed" running.

So not wanting to go through that beginning stage of suckage is motivation enough to keep going. Keep at it! Focus on your pace or listening to music and you'll be able to block out the feelings of anxiety.

Ever since I began exercising semi-regularly again in the last month, it's been a struggle to get out the door every time. It's been especially bad this week with both running and biking, even though the latter is something I LOVE doing and it's still warm enough outside to make it fun.

I don't have the motivation I usually use and mention in the above quote because I have no fitness to lose. I am starting at absolute zero, so it's easy to justify putting off exercise for another day or week.

Both Monday and Tuesday I went back and forth with myself about working out, first being very motivated, then justifying not going at all. Finally as sunset neared, I realized that the things I want to fix and the goals I have for myself all require me to burn calories and get fitter. And putting this off for a different day is just going to extend the unhappiness I feel about my state of health. So I sucked it up and went begrudgingly.

It's harder to find my usual motivation when I'm just starting an exercise routine. I just have to keep going over my run and bike times from the last couple years and see that these programs really do make me faster, fitter, and healthier. And then I have to force myself out the door.