Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Let the (mental) games begin

When I first starting marathoning I trained with an organized group in town, MiT. I was part of the very first MiT group and was the youngest person there. I trained with them for 3 years until I qualified for Boston. Then I was fast enough to train with my dad and his group of friends. Within that group, I picked up a training partner and we trained and raced together for many years. She accepted a job in Colorado. I hired a coach. And now I train all alone and have for a couple of years.

I have a threshold for what is an acceptable distance to do by myself and what is not. That number? 15. Fifteen miles seems like an okay distance to do by myself, but anything over that takes a lot of motivation. Right now I'm in the thick of marathon training. Seems early to be doing the miles that I am, but last week had a 16 miler and this week has an 18. And adding to getting myself worked up to get out the door for the mileage, I started my 16 mile run with the temperature around 19 degrees. This week's 18 miler should be even colder as the temperature is supposed to be between 11 and 18.

I got through my 16 miler. I'll get through my 18 miler. And I'll tackle the further distances that are yet to come. But for now, I need a little motivation:

A view of my bathroom mirror.

15 comments:

Mike said...

love the mirror! I keep wanting to just write on the walls of my apartment, but I'm not sure that the landlord would be okay with it!

Unknown said...

Dude the pic of the mirror took me a second to realize it was a mirror. I thought you had some like crazy "Inception" type stuff going on in that pic!!

You are a badass running in those temps!

Caratunk Girl said...

Love the Motivation Mirror (that is what I am calling it!)

Way to get out there!

Anonymous said...

I soooo wish I could come up and run with you!! You will have a GREAT 18 miles!!!

Velma said...

Great idea!!!

mjcaron said...

hehehe.. that is so cute.

Unknown said...

I love this! I totally believe that words are powerful, especially when we start to believe what they are saying!!

Unknown said...

Thanks for this post Mere! I'm with you on the training, and spring marathons are so hard! I have a 17miler on Sat too, most likely alone. Good luck with your runs. Love your post-its!

Kacie Darden said...

Fantastic!

Chris said...

You finish 18 solo in the cold and you'll hold onto that mental toughness in the marathon. When the going gets tough in the marathon as it always does, draw from this and it'll make you stronger!

jessithompson said...

Fawesome.

Anonymous said...

I certainly does take some guts to get out there an pound the road all by yourself. So you have all that and going to kill the 18 this weekend. Good Luck

rhino said...

Sport psych has a great deal of research regarding motivation & goal setting. Often, it's just getting your butt out the door, then everything is fine (much like the nerves before a race, then they go away when the gun/cannon goes off). During the "hard" times, I find it helps to verbally repeat a simple phrase of moto. Great work!

Mer! said...

I totally agree, so hard to motivate to run for so long solo...I hate it..ugh..but you're doing awesome, can't even imagine 11-18 degree runs, I ran in 23 degrees and that was fine, but any colder I think i'd cry!!

It's interesting to read your journey towards qualifying for Boston...I never heard that people worked for three years before qualifying, sometimes I feel like people make it sound so easy and I truly don't think it is....thanks for reassuring me it's hard work and if I want to do it, I gotta work harder :)

Jamie said...

I love it. I tried doing that once, but only got to one sticky note.

Apparently my first motivational note should have been "write more motivating stick notes."