3 Week Countdown

I’m participating in Nain’s Motivation Monday.  (I know it’s not Monday, but I still wanted to join the fun!)  If you would like to link up, just leave a comment on her blog with the link to your motivational post.

I have 3 weeks left until I run the longest race I’ve ever run.  The Charlottesville 10 Miler is on March 26th, and I’m not feeling ready.  My knee hurts after about 3 miles.  My hamstrings are killing me, and I can barely walk, let alone run.  And the farthest I have gotten in my training is 7 miles.  While I am super excited to be doing this with my sister (and I could not have gotten through so much training without her encouragement), I am learning that my body was just not made for these long distances.  A 10k (6.2 miles) is the perfect distance for me.  I’ve done the Zooma 10k in Annapolis the past two years and plan to do it again this year.  It’s long, but not too long.

With all the aches and pains, I’ve found it hard to get the motivation to train as much as I need to so that I can feel confident going into this race in 3 weeks.  I wish my sister and I lived closer so we could do all of our long runs together, but that’s just not possible now.  So instead, I’ve got a list of a five things below that have helped me get out there and run, run, run!

• A Kick Butt Playlist (I’ve got quite a compilation.  Here are some examples: Firework by Katy Perry, Gives You Hell by The All-American Rejects, True Faith by New Order, Rock That Body by Black Eyed Peas, and Say Hey by Michael Franti & Spearhead.  These songs keep my sore legs going, and I often push myself to run faster until the end of a song.)
• Google Calendar (My sister created a Google Calendar for us so that we can mark down our training runs.  It’s great because I can see what she did that week and text her some encouraging words and vice versa.  It’s also good to keep me accountable for everything.)
• New Running Clothes (Every woman knows that having awesome workout clothes is half the battle of actually working out.  Heck – the time spent shopping for them could be a workout in itself!  I just bought myself some new running capris last weekend, and I can’t wait to wear them this weekend for my long run.  I think I look pretty darn cute in them too, which is always motivating.)
• Nike+ GPS app for my iPhone (I also have the old Nike+ for my iPod Nano, but I’ve liked running with my phone lately since I’m running so far – it’s good to have the safety of knowing someone is only a phone call away if something happens.   The GPS feature is great for tracking mileage, and I love getting the verbal update on my mileage and pace.)
• Cupcakes! (Ok, that one might seem a little off, but the way my mind works is that if I do a long run, I can eat whatever I want that day because I’ve burned so many calories.  The hard part is that my stomach is usually in such knots after a long run that I don’t want to eat anything for several hours after.  But then….  You can bet I’ll be reaching for a cupcake or a cookie or whatever it is I baked that day!)

With 3 weeks to go, I need all the motivation I can muster.  I’m shooting for 8 miles this weekend, which will most likely be my peak before slowing down a bit to rest before the big race.  Having the above arsenal behind me, there is no way I will let myself fail.