Today was really hard for me to get motivated to work out. The wind was knocked out of my sails after going over our budget. It looks like I may not be able to do the half Ironman race in November. With a race fee of over $300 and travel expenses, it will be very expensive.
I'm the type of person that has to set a goal to work towards. I have a hard time training just for the sake of training. There are people that run on a regular basis that never put a race bib on in their life. That's not me. I like the challenge of having a set deadline for my training. There were times where I've had to modify my race schedule because of one reason or the other, but that deadline is always there. With the thought of not having the half Ironman this fall leaves me feeling a little lost in regards to my training. That leaves me with the only goal of cutting my 10k time down by two minutes.
It was hard for me to find the motivation to run today. Instead of going to the gym, all I wanted to do was go sit down at a restaurant and eat lunch. Even sitting outside the gym in my car, I was debating on whether or not to go in. I managed to turn my car off and walk in. I ran three miles on the treadmill, took a shower and left. Although it was tough to get motivated to work out, I'm glad that I did.
As hard as it was to find the motivation to work out, there are a couple of factors that drove me to do it. The first was that I did not want my running to fall off. I'm also not 100% sure that I'm not running the half Ironman this fall. I would not want to start skipping workouts on the off chance that I am able to run that race. And lastly, I still plan on running the 10k. I definitely don't want to let that go.
Everyone has something that motivates them and moves them to do things. The goal of working towards a race is what works for me. For others it may be a weight loss goal or just the way one feels after a good run or work out. There are certain motivators that move all of us. These motivators help us accomplish small successes every day.