Motivation Hunting

Two posts in two days? On this blog?!

Yes. I went to bed with the intention of waking up at 6:00 for a short treadmill run. I succumbed to my routine over the last two years of hitting snooze twice and rolling over until my regular daily alarm went off signaling the morning before-school-circus was to begin. 

So I'll be running tonight instead. It's killing me that I didn't follow through on my "first run" so this morning I've been putting together motivation tools to get my ass moving. Nothing truly new for me. I dug up the flash drive with my old training log from the 70.3 training year and saved it to my laptop's harddrive for easy access with a brand new, bright and shiny tab labeled "2015". Did some retail therapy and bought a new pair of training shoes to kick off my new mileage counter (a new brand to me: Saucony Verrata). 

But what I just found to be the best motivator was digging through some things from my 'past life' (yes, it's just two years ago but it seems like forever).

I read my Almanzo 100 report from 2013 then kept scrolling to read my 70.3 report. Gasp...I forgot that I didn't write anything here about it. It never happened!

Luckily, Professor Boz hasn't deleted his blog. Boz was generous enough to show up and practice some of his writing skills using me as a subject back in 2012. He followed me around the course all day and made his own race report which he merged together with my own account and posted to his blog in daily installments. I had originally meant to post coincidentally with his posts but never did. 

Without further redundant explanation, here is Part I of our Chisago Lakes Triathlon race report.

[Target identified]

That's the text from my wife that is kick-starting me back into training. We've got a tag-team style of parenting between my weekly travel and her working nights and weekends where, unless we're both training for something at the same time, it's hard to make time to support the other in their journey.

When I was getting into bike racing and triathlon back in '08 and '09, we had just one child. I'll admit that I was putting a LOT more time into training and competing than she was, but she was still running and working out with her own goals at the same time.

Two-kids-within-16-months later, our fitness goals went mostly out the window in the sleep-deprived haze of raising babies. I still finished a 70.3 and met a few other fitness goals along the way, but nowhere near as much as I wanted. She, obviously, sacrificed much more than I did and it took embarrassingly long for me to realize that. 

Which brings me to the last two years. I've all but given up on signing up for anything endurance related. Our schedule is crazy just with trying to balance our own work schedules, let alone adding in the kids' activities at an exponential rate. We were both active children ourselves and want nothing more than for our kids to be active and happy and involved, which is why we promote and encourage their involvement at the expense of our own "free time." We cancelled our dusty and expensive gym membership long ago in lieu of getting our own treadmill (which we paid off within 5 months of our saved gym membership dues). I built up my own little DIY home gym and got into body weight training as an answer to my busy travel schedule and needing to be able to workout wherever I could. 

Wife was able to run the DisneyWorld Marathon in 2014, but not at 100%. She came down with pneumonia right in the middle of her peak training which made her go into the race nearly cold turkey. But it was all pre-paid already and she wasn't going to waste a trip to Disney. She got up early with her running mates and decided to just run until she couldn't do it anymore...but she finished! AND she got some great photos with Disney characters along the way during her walk breaks. 

I still run once or twice a week with my trusty training partner, Dixie the dog, but haven't run more than 10k in two years.

The wife and I have talked here and there about getting back into things. She's disappointed with her Disney marathon luck and just plain wants to get back into shape. She knows my passion for all things sport and knows how dangerous of a trigger it is to send documented permission to sign up for something as big as a marathon. 

But I signed us both up. We might run together, we might not. The intent is to train-together-but-not-together most of the time, but moreso to tackle this and learn how to both train for something and accomplish personal goals without sacrificing the million other family obligations. The medal won't just signify our ability to finish a marathon; we both know we can do that individually. It will signify a new accomplishment done together in our marriage. 

So, here's to Day 1.