I’ve been avoiding the run for a couple days. I don’t know if it was the letdown after our trip to State Cross Country or if the change in weather had something to do
with it, but I’ve had trouble getting out the door. The fact is, now that cross country season
has ended, I don’t have an obligation to run each weekday afternoon. I have told myself that the afternoon
practice kind of interrupts my day and I look forward to running in the
mornings again. When the opportunity came, however, I was back to making a
decision – every day. I decided to skip it for a couple of days!
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| Parma Girls XC Team 2013 |
I made the decision last night that I would run this
morning. Morning came and I began to
assess the weather and determine if I had a head cold that was bad enough to
keep me off the streets. This was silly
because I have often gone for cold weather runs and I am a believer that a
little exercise lessens the severity of a cold. I wasn’t completely committed to
a morning run, but I chose to don my running gear while I went through the motions
of my morning routine – making the bed, cleaning up the breakfast dishes, doing
some laundry, checking to see how many views my recent blog post has earned,
and so on.
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| Parma Boys XC Team 2013 |
I knew that this simple act would bring me closer to the
front door. Just as muscle memory
workouts help us perform better in competition, the look and feel of my running
clothes helped my mind prepare for the next step. It worked!
I went for a run and it was great!
It wasn’t my longest or fastest run, but it was effective and I felt
better afterwards.
I do this with other aspects of my life. It’s often easy to talk myself out of any
given project because I don’t feel up to it, or it isn’t convenient, or it
might be uncomfortable. When I simply
dive in and get the job done, it often proves to be satisfying and not nearly
as difficult as anticipated. Sometimes just going through the motions is the
jump start I need.
What helps you tackle those things you would rather not
face?
I have a GREAT running buddy who I run with once a week. On the other days we text each other what we ran. When I am feeling unmotivated to run and lazy a text from her stating what she has just ran sure does the trick!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jodi, for sharing this tip. Great advice!
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