Into The Wild

The weather is a highly motivating factor in my day-to-day life.

This morning, it motivated me to... well... rather, it demotivated me. Once again, I was up before the sun, and once again, it was not a particularly enjoyable experience. The accumulation of the last week's mornings was really starting to catch up with me, and my brain just wasn't working.

Just like yesterday, I was really cold when I got up, and just like yesterday, it was in the 40s when I checked the temperature, so, just like yesterday, I decided to put off the run until later in the morning. Throughout the next couple hours, though, it became clear that my body was not really excited about the prospect of physical exertion. As more time went by, I felt better about the idea of postponing my run for a day.

Tomorrow is scheduled to be a rest day, so I figured that I could do today's five miler tomorrow morning. I decided this was the best course of action, and almost immediately, I felt bad about it.

See, I read this article today on RunnersWorld.com about inspiring others to become runners, and it planted a little seed of conscience in me. I know that not too many people read my blog as of yet, but of those that do, some have told me, and of those, a few have told me that it inspires them. In fact, one of the most important people in my life told me that they'd lost 30 pounds since they began running again, inspired by reading the blog. It absolutely floored me. I'd never thought of myself as a fitness leader, and really, all I was doing was talking about myself, but it translated well, evidently.

Soon after finding out about several of these readers, I got injured. In fact, it seemed that the more people I heard about reading, the less I was running. You would think it would have inspired me to run even more, but somehow, it had the opposite effect. I felt like I had to be smarter, which meant that I didn't want to screw up, and it caused me to let myself get away with any laziness that I could justify. Some of it was absolutely due to injury, but to be honest, some of it was just laziness.

When I read the article today, I thought about those people, and it made me more anxious to get out there and pound the pavement like I was scheduled to do. When my wife said that she was interested in running today, it sealed the decision. Laced up, headed out.

I'll have to do three 5-mile runs in each of the next four weeks, so I really needed a new five mile course. Also, I figure I should start doing some hill work, considering that the Seattle course is far from smooth. I determined that both of these goals could be easily accomplished by going left out of our apartment complex instead of right. However, I hadn't mapped out a course yet, so I decided to try something new.

I figured that if I ran 8-minute miles, which is my standard base goal, that the run would take me 40 minutes, so I ran out for 20, and back for 20, hoping this would create at least a five mile course. I'd be running up and down some pretty rough hills, and it was unfamiliar territory, but at least it would be interesting. It turned out to be more than half a mile longer than I was shooting for, which meant that I was on training pace on hills, in heat.

For someone to tell me I inspire them, I have to feel like an inspiration to myself. Today, I felt like that.

And I still get my rest day tomorrow.

Wednesday's Run:
76 Degrees / Sunny
5.51 Miles
40 Minutes, 45 Seconds