We’ve all been there where we had those “bad runs” or are defeated by our level of performance in an endurance event. Cassandra, Montana, Julie, Bethany and I are here today to talk about our training and race woes and how we inspire ourselves when we’re feeling fatigued and overwhelmed; when the weather’s bad and we need to run inside, when we’ve just trained hard for an event and did not perform the way we thought we would, etc.
There are a couple things I have set in stone during my training to help drive my desire to get up and run. For starters, I have my medals hanging over my dresser in my bedroom. This is one of the last things I see at night before turning in and one of the first when I wake up in the morning. Seeing how far I’ve come and what I’ve earned, help motivate me to get out of bed on mornings when I don’t want to.
Another thing I like to do to keep me inspired is look for various quotes and sayings on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, etc. I like to take some of these quotes and use them as the background on my phone. My favorite that I have stumbled across so far is “I don’t make excuses, I make results.”
Whether it be first thing in the morning and my alarm is going off or if I have to save my run for after work, I look at this on my phone and tell myself exactly that, “I don’t make excuses, I make results.”
When it comes to the performance of a race, the closest I have experienced to something like this was over the summer when I participated in a 5k series on the beach. The first run in the series my time clocked in at 37:56. I will admit my personal best at the time was 34:00 and my other 5k times came in between 34:00 and 36:00 so I was a little defeated but I also had to take into consideration the factors like the weather or a muscle cramp and how they can hinder your performance. The day of this run in particular was the hottest I had ever “raced” in and it was on the beach so that was a new experience for me. These are the things I let myself think about at the time as it helps to put me at ease, almost like grieving, and let I try to forget about it and move on.
Overall, I tell myself continuously to try and not let myself get too down, if the results did not turn out how I hope they would; whether it be a race or even a training run. Running is not only a physical sport but a mental one at that. Along with the good days come the bad. I cannot and will not let a bad run or race dictate the performance of my next run, if anything, I hope to learn from it.
Running has definitely taught me a lot about myself and that I am capable of more than I thought was possible! What is one thing you have learned about yourself in the midst of a training or race woe?
Next week’s theme (11/13): Lessons Learned.
Link up with Powered By BLING, Pretty Lil Mudder, Half Marathon Mama, Girl on the Move and The Runner Within for Let’s Talk Training Thursday! on the 2nd & 4th Thursdays of each month. Link up your post about the week’s training theme so your post will be found in the linkup archives. Then, link back to our blogs to share the linkup with your readers.
A new topic will be posted every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month.
I feel like our posts were similar lol. Mine was mostly about training due to the fact that I haven’t had a ‘bad’ race yet…but I agree! Stay positive and there’s always another race!