Tag Archives: Motivation

Several weeks ago, on my ongoing journey to find the end of the Internet, I

Adding a few items to my running board made me feel all warm, fuzzy and motivated.

found a fabulous active.com post co-written by sports psychologist Alison Arnold, a “mental toughness trainer” for a host of Olympic athletes. I gushed about it at length (see my post here), and vowed to be better about getting my mind in the right place before my workouts.

I was so jazzed about the realization that I could actually affect my performance through my thinking, I pitched a story on the topic to Running Times. Fast-forward a few more weeks, and this week, I got to pick Arnold’s brain about how a regular ol’ runner like me can harness motivation like a pro.

While compiling a list of tips for the story, I decided to try the techniques myself before an everyday training run. Just to see. Here’s how it went:

1. Identify negative thoughts. Arnold says negative thoughts can be sneaky. We know better than to tell ourselves we’re about to have a crappy workout. We’re more likely to make definitive statements about our performance:  “I always get tired around this point,” or “I always get hurt in the winter,” Arnold says. Letting your mind focus on pain that might be quite real – “My knee is killing me” – counts, too.

I thought about this, hard, and discovered I really never give myself a break from a barrage of sneaky negative thoughts. Regulars in the chaotic, crowded happy-hour that is my mind: My creaky, gimpy hip will prevent me from running the Marine Corps Marathon this year. I always fall behind when I try to chase the faster pace group. I’m a spazz who should be barred from trail-running to avoid injury to myself and others.

Sheesh. Maybe we should try a different bar.

2. Substitute positive thoughts – or at least neutral ones. Arnold says not to sweat it if positive, sunny thoughts don’t ring true at first, and suggests taking “one step up on the feel-good scale.”

My positive spins: My hip problems have made me a stronger runner and overall athlete thanks to months of physical therapy, and I can always defer the MCM registration til next year if necessary, focusing on the Philadelphia Half-Marathon, or even a swim event, this year instead. As for the pace group, I know most of our group-run routes, so if I fall behind, it’s not a big deal. And trying to keep up with people who are faster than me makes me a better runner, which is why I’m training to begin with.

3. Feed the positive thought with breathing, music and continued positive self-talk.

The self-talk was great on the spazzy-trails front, and I enjoyed my run SO much more when I just focused on running it! But it did little to ease my anxiety when the guys I was running with did, in fact, pull away from me on the route’s last hill. This led to the equivalent of a bar fight in my head, as competing thoughts exchanged sucker-punches. I eventually shut them up by reverting to a mental playlist including lots of Eminem, not even realizing I was following Arnold’s advice. A bonus: I caught up to the guys at a stoplight. Sweet!

4. Channel your passion. Every runner should have a long-term goal they’re passionate about and should remind themselves of that goal often. A runner training for Race for the Cure might repeat “cure” during speed workouts. A runner training for a marathon might hang a course map on the refrigerator, tape a motivational quote to the bathroom mirror or create a billboard with inspirational magazine cutouts and photos.

I already had a little bulletin board with an ad for the MCM, a colorful little graphic from a Runner’s World story titled “Why Do You Run?” and an awesome pencil-sketch from my husband wishing me luck before the National Half-Marathon. I added a few new photos, along with an ad for the Crystal City Twilighter 5K, July 25, heeding Arnold’s advice about also having short-term goals.

4. Develop a pre-run ritual. Do the same stretches, listen to the same music and repeat the same few phrases that make you feel ready to run.  Use your breath to channel those feelings: Literally, imagine breathing them in.

How did I want to feel during my run? Powerful. Strong. Focused. In control of my thoughts. Like an awesome, uninjured, outdoorsy trail-running diva. I imagined breathing these thoughts in. Not much happened after, but maybe I just blew a fuse with the outdoorsy-diva bit.

For me, the major light-bulb moment was identifying all the sneaky negative thoughts competing for space in my mind. Picking them out and drowning them out definitely led to a happier — and faster — run.

Check out our awesome trail-run route here: Valley Trail loop through Rock Creek Park.

In other news: My appointment with my running doc this morning confirmed my suspicion that the Marine Corps Marathon might be out of the question this year. He said based on my hip’s history, I should spend the rest of July running 4 to 6 miles three or four times a week — no long runs, as my training plan calls for. Then again, he said, the MCM isn’t out of the question — I’m not benched, just questionable. In August, I can start adding long runs … and see how it goes.

The cool thing about seeing a doctor who runs: He asked if I had a time goal in mind. I said I did. He winced, and asked what it was, and what I’ve done before. I told him I wanted to come in around four hours, and said I ran a 1:49 half-marathon in March. “Oh!” he said, swatting his hand and smiling. “You should be able to come in under four hours, easy.” Thanks, doc!

Next up: the 2-mile Chris Greene Lake Cable Swim in Charlottesville, Va., tomorrow! I’ll be Tweeting from the race, and promise to have a post-race report up just as soon as we’re home — but with a planned side-trip to the Shenandoah, it might be a while. 🙂

Can I tell you about the awesome running experience I had this morning?

I met up with Back on My Feet Baltimore, a group that aims to get homeless people back on their feet by getting them into a structured running program, at 5:30 a.m. in Baltimore. This meant leaving my apartment in Washington at 4:45 a.m. I am googly-eyed with exhaustion as I write this.

As soon as I saw the group of runners gathered in a nondescript parking lot outside the MCVET homeless shelter, their bright running clothes a beacon in the gray pre-dawn darkness, I knew I was about to experience something special.

I’m writing a story about this group for Urbanite magazine, so I don’t want to give too much away here. But I will provide a quick sneak preview.

The group starts by circling up, performing a series of stretches and warm-up exercises in unison. It’s a fitting start, as this group does everything together. At Back on My Feet, nobody, no matter what pace, gets left behind to run alone.

Today, I spent most of my time with the most outgoing guys in the group, Arnold Shipman (goes by “Awesome Arnold”), a former high-school cross-country and track athlete from Baltimore, and Micheal (correct spelling) Roger Tate, a former high school and college track star from California. Neither of them had run for about 20 years before starting with Back on My Feet.

We ran 3.5 miles at maybe a 9-minute mile pace, but the easy banter among team members made it feel like much less. Shipman greets every passerby with an exuberant “Hi! How ya doing?” Ask him how it feels to get back into running, and he’ll offer this response:  “Faan-tastic!”

The group runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “It makes my whole day good,” Shipman says. The days without running are long, he says. The days with running have purpose.

This struck me as being so similar to something I’d write in this blog, or that I’d say about my own running group. It’s amazing to see how our basic human emotions are so much the same, even as our life circumstances can be so different.

Keep checking here for updates about my runs with this awesome group.

In other running news, I have officially fallen in love with Sligo Creek Parkway Trail. My Pacers Silver Spring Fun Run group ran a fast, flat route along the trail last night, and I’m truly still in a good mood today, despite still wiping sleep from my eyes at noon. For details on that route and a few others that take advantage of today’s warm, sunny weather, check out my DC Running Examiner post from earlier today.

As I said earlier this week, I really hadn’t planned on tapering before the Broad Street Run on Sunday (visit my DC Running Examiner site for my race preview).

But with orders not to run for a few days until a cortisone shot in my ankle has a chance to work, I entered into a sort of accidental taper on Tuesday. To that end, I took today off. Like, totally off. No abs. No push-ups. No nothing. It will be one of three off days this week, as I’m not planning to run the day before the race.

I’m not going crazy as I usually do. I am, however, amazed at just how much my running and swimming workouts dictate my daily routine. Like, when do people who don’t work out shower? (Answer: If I have to ask whether it’s time to take a shower, I should probably do so). What do you do when you need an energy burst, or an anger release? When do you eat when you’re not timing your meals around your workouts?

I realize all this planning may seem borderline depressing from the outside, like a burden I should be happy to shed. But I’m eager to get back to my usual routine. A quote from George Sheehan, my favorite runner-philosopher, sums it up this way:

“The more I run, the more I want to run, and the more I live a life conditioned and influenced and fashioned by my running. And the more I run, the more certain I am that I am heading for my real goal: to become the person I am.”

Sheehan, from my home county of Monmouth County, New Jersey, also referred to running as a “self-renewing compulsion.” Cool, huh?

Not that kind of streaking, silly.

According to a piece from Runner’s World Amby Burfoot, Ben Beach of Bethesda has run 42 consecutive Boston Marathons. Actually, the Runner’s World piece from March 2008 says he’s completed 40 — Monday marked his twenty-second, with a finish of 4:48, according to race results.

In addition to being consistent, Beach is fast, with a PR of 2:27. He is also committed against all odds: A neurological movement disorder called dystonia has affected Beach’s gait, making training difficult and racing harder.

But he has persevered not only in Boston, but at the annual Cherry Blossom Ten Miler, the eponymous Washington race that defines April for many DC runners. Burfoot writes that as of March 2008, Beach was the only runner to have finished all 35 Cherry Blossom Ten Milers. He finished this year’s race with a time of 1:37 — which many runners who aren’t coping with a debilitating condition like his consider pretty speedy.

To understand how Beach keeps going, check out this amazing video showing his three adult children pacing him to a 2007 Boston Marathon finish. If you don’t get a little weepy listening to self-effacing Beach talk about how much his kids’ support means to him, and how he was afraid he was letting them down, you might be a jerk.

Learn more about Washington runners at the Boston Marathon at my DC Running Examiner page.

I was thrilled to learn that my marathon time of 4:34 in 2007 qualified me to run the coveted Boston Marathon. That is, it would have qualified me on the age-graded qualifying scale if I were a 75-year-old woman.

In the meantime, I live vicariously through other Washington-area locals running the mother of all marathons, which starts its notoriously hilly race through Boston this morning. Among them is Sheena Dahlke, who’s running to raise money for Girls Gotta Run, one of the coolest non-profit organizations I’ve heard of. Washington resident Pat Ortman founded the all-volunteer group a few years ago to raise money for Ethiopian girls training to become professional runners. The girls use running as a bridge out of poverty, not to mention teenage marriage and childbirth, and to a better life.

Stay tuned for more about this fabulous organization in future posts. For today, send your best wishes to Sheena and other runners from the greater Washington area who are running their hearts out as we speak. Check back here later for results.