Week 3: Motivate Me

Can you believe it? We are three weeks into this thing already. My shoes showed up at my front door not two hours after posting Week 2. Hooray! They are squishy, and amazing, and I love them. Moving on. 

 

Yesterday, I started week three of the running program I've been following (see plan in Week 1's blog). Most of my runs are with baby Frank, but some of them I have done on my own. It is almost easier having Frank with me because I am more focused on him than I am the running (and by running, I am in fact referring to the lactic acid burning in my leg muscles, and the angry shouts coming from my lungs directed at yours truly). This probably means the running that I do sans Frank is more effective, but c'est la vie.  

Don't let me fool you. I feel awesome between runs, and especially awesome just after completing a run when I'm stretching on the living room floor. But during them, I am finding any and every excuse to quit. I'm almost back around by the house, maybe I should just pack it in. This is too hard. Holy. Crap. What was I thinking? Can I justify just turning back? Maybe Frank needs a diaper change. Maybe I have to pee?.... and so on. If I'm not trying to think up a reason to stop, I'm counting seconds and staring at my timer on my phone. Yesterday, I found myself start to go there again. I had seven minutes of running this time, instead of five (dispersed between varied lengths of walking) and I was really feeling it. There are infinitely many reasons why I want to do this (so maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but there are quite a few). So, during a particularly difficult interval, I started listing them off:

1. To get healthy.
2. To fit into my jeans. 
3. To look better in a swimsuit this summer.
4. To feel good about my body and myself.
5. To FINALLY participate in a color run.
6. ONE-DERLAND. 

With each minute on, I repeated these to myself (bikini body, step, bikini body, step, jeans, one-derland, step, bikini body, step, jeans, step, one-derland, jeans, step, etc). When I did this, as opposed to whining to myself and being a Debby-downer, I found the running minutes were over before I knew it. I also increased my distance to 1.2 miles from the .8 miles I was going last week (each lap I do around my street equates to .4 miles, so I added an entire third lap). Go figure.  


Last week, in addition to the running/walking, I added a new arm workout that I found on pinterest (where else?). I dug out a pair of 3lb dumbbells I knew we had hiding in the house and got to it. I very much enjoy this one. It's no walk in the park, but I'm not killing myself either. I can feel my muscles working with each rep, and certainly feel it after I complete the workout. Someday when I grow a money tree, I'll buy some heavier weights. Until then, I'll be using these babies. I've continued the ab workout that I also posted week one, but I am now on the hunt for another one to step it up a notch. 

So there you have it, my week's shenanigans. I will leave you with a final piece of motivation that I particularly fancy. Some runs are seemingly immaculate, shiny runs to be proud of-  the ones where you find some magic burst of spare energy and sprint the last thirty seconds, or shave minutes off of a previous time. Some are just sloppy, slow and distracted. That doesn't mean those runs were for naught. I can be proud of my bad runs too.