motivation?

Every few months I look for something new to motivate myself to run. Sometimes it is an upcoming local race, sometimes it is changing who I run with. I find that making some changes every once in awhile helps to keep things interesting.

Yesterday I tried a couple of new things on my long run. Instead of heading out the door to run the entire distance by myself, I took my son with me for the first half. M was home so I estimated my time for the first half and we did a hand-off halfway through my long run. I thought this worked really well. I enjoy taking him with me and 5 miles is about his limit.

The other new thing is tied into this first one and that was to run loops. I always run a single loop because to me it's all over once I see the finish. Mentally, I stop.

Yesterday's run was composed of two different 5 mile loops. The first through the neighborhood with a nice flat stretch in the middle miles and the second on a hilly route. The break between was very brief. M was waiting for us and came right out to retrieve our son so I didn't have to stop for more than a minute. Maybe it was this little distraction at the "finish" that helped me to continue on for a second loop?

It was a really great run.