Daughter running her first 5K {on right}

So far it has been a good week because I ran on Monday and today! Yippee! Last week I only ran once. Booooo. I hate when I do that because it is so difficult to get back into the groove. I had to walk beginning at a mile and a half {3 miles total.}  Anyway, while running I decided to write about what helps motivate me to keep running. I’m not referring to what motivates me to actually go running. I’m talking about when I am in the middle of a run…hoping it might help someone else.

First of all, If you are a beginner runner or a walker considering to run, please remember to buy running shoes fitted to your feet. {You can read more about this here.} There are other things to consider with running…clothing, food/fuel, stretching, etc. I will have to write about those another day.

Back to motivation…here are my best motivation techniques:

• walk until the next tree or some sort of land mark
• walk until the current song is over
• walk until the part of the song picks up pace
• keep running until I pass the people ahead of me
• keep running until the song is over
• run down hill, walk up hill
• tell myself, “it’s okay to run slower.”
• tell myself, “you have run a marathon, you can finish this one mile.”
• tell myself I will stop and stretch after the mile is over

Love this shot

Most of long distance running is mental.  Like the old saying goes, “Mind over body/matter.”  Whenever I begin to feel like my body is struggling while I run, I tell myself “walk for a bit.”  Honestly, I hate walking.  If I’m going to exercise I want to get it over with and walking is just not fast enough for me.  But when I am working to get back into shape {like I am now}, I have to give myself a break.  This protects me from injury.  Sometimes I feel like I can’t run the rest of my mile, so I will tell myself to walk the rest of the way.  Funny thing is, I don’t end up walking the rest of the mile.  I walk a little and then a favorite upbeat song will come on my ipod and the next thing I know I’m running again.  I have written about music motivating me before.  {You can read more about that here.}

Whenever I run a half marathon {or my one and only marathon} I always walk during the water stops…great strategy to keep going.

Hope these techniques might help keep you going on your next run.
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