Off The Beaten Path

I've been taking a completely different approach to my half marathon training this go around. I have basically ditched the typical training schedule and now I'm officially "winging" it. What does that mean exactly?? I'm not running a designated amount of miles on a designated day and hating myself every other day. I still have scheduled long runs once a week, but my runs during the week aren't necessarily the typical steady state cardio type runs. I've been alternating between hill sprints, tempo runs and my "long run" yesterday turned more into a interval type run (due to run buddy circumstance). They say, the only bad run is one you didn't do...but I beg to differ. I want to enjoy what I'm doing, or else I may NOT want to keep doing it!

But it's been more enjoyable! It's been cool pushing and challenging myself to do different types of training. Some may worry about endurance, but I am confident that between my new training, cave work and strength training I will be more than ready for this half marathon in October. Where am I finding the time for all this?? I must admit. It isn't easy. It takes sacrifice. Life has basically become sleep, eat, work, and workout. Last weekend, I had to forgo a fun evening hanging out with friends because I had to wake up early and run the next day. Did I regret it? No, I didn't. Although, I wish I could of been there, keeping training up is essential to meeting my goals. Just two more months and I'll have more free time again. Thankfully, I have a wonderful group of friends that understand :)

I get asked, "How do you stay motivated?" and frankly, this one is simple. I just am. I love this life. I love working out. It makes me feeling amazing, healthy and strong. I enjoy it. It's fun. I love the people in my fitness circle. My rest days usually end up with me wishing I had clocked a workout in, but know it's essential for my body to get that recovery time. And I think this is why so many people that start out on their fitness journey cut it short, or just drop it all together. They are miserable. They haven't found exactly what they like. They don't have a good support circle & expectations are too high. Just like anything else in  your life, you have to devote time to it. You have to do research. You have to commit to the process, no matter how slow the progress is. Slow progress is better than NO progress.  My own motivation has essentially transformed into habit over time & now working out is just another part of my day, like breathing. I could still use a little work in the eating department, but that's ok, we all have things we need to work on.

The point of this blog is, don't give up. No matter what is going on in your life. Life is going to happen to you. It will lift you up and it will beat you down. But YOU control how you handle it and only YOU have control over your own happiness. Don't give up. Keep pushing. You've got to do it for yourself, because nobody else is going to care for you. Make it a habit. That one skipped workout, will become a week, will evolve into a month...and next thing you know it's been 6 months. It goes that quickly. Change that, today.