Tag Archives: running

I’ve Got My Running Mojo Back

…did you know it went away?

Okay, maybe. Running since the D.C. Half , my motivation has waned. I trained pretty hard for that race, trained my heart out for Marine Corps last year and I was a bit mentally burnt out. I wanted to get back to some classes and cross-training, which I always slack on when I have a race on the horizon. I’m pretty bad at balancing both running and cross-training, but I’m hoping now that I’ve been cross-training/yoga-ing more, I’ll miss them more while training and get better at re-incorporating them.

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Also, it is FINALLY NICE OUT IN NEW YORK. When I’m not training for anything, I’m more than happy with three miles. A little less than 30 minutes, totally a workout. I set out for three, got to the water (about 1 mile in) and decided I’d definitely do four. I got to 2 (my turnaround point) and decided to do just 1/2 a mile more to get to a very nice five for the day.

Why else is my mojo back? I have the Brooklyn Half coming up…and I’m also doing another sprint tri in my hometown in June. I’m not all that into it – I signed up for it with Ashley before her big news and now she’s not doing it but I talked another friend into doing it for her first tri so I’m in. Now, um, to commit to a gym for the next 6 weeks so I have a place to swim…

But most importantly, there’s been so much running motivation on the Internets lately:

Anne had an amazing PR in at the Nike Women’s Half

Meggie BQ-ed!

So did Laura! (Dear Laura, please write your race recap, thanks :))

And two good friends have decided to run their first marathons:

Anne and Emily – and I am so proud of both of them.

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And would like to take at least a little credit for it.

Oh, and marathon training will be starting relatively soon. I have a score to settle with sub-4, so I’m itching to get after it.

Have you been lacking in running mojo lately? How’d you get it back? Are you leaning towards signing up for your first marathon? (Do it!!!)

Coach Knows Best

After massively PR-ing at the D.C. Half, I immediately turned my thoughts to The! Next! Race!

A 1:49 half had gone from a someday goal to a OMG-I-can-do-this-really-soon goal, and I was chomping at the bit to find another race ASAP and slaughter that goal.

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Maybe I just wanted a reason to celebrate. Whatever.

I started looking up local halfs and emailing with my coach, Jess. She suggested the More/Fitness Half, as it was close enough that I could continue to train and get some more good speedwork in. I started warming up to the idea of running it, but not so much the training. Like Emily wrote, this freaking cold March needs to end. I, too, am done with bundling up to go run outside. It’s like I had some secret internal allowance of cold weather runs, and once I hit that, I was just done with running in the cold.

So when I got Jess’s email the other day, I knew she was right.

So, I was reading your post about your post-race thoughts and I remember what happened after your full last year and wanting to run another marathon, but then getting burned out.


My advice (which you can take or leave) would be to relish in your 5 minute PR for now and give yourself a little break before you have to start training for your tri so you don’t feel burnt out in a few months. In my opinion that would be more beneficial in the long run towards meeting your other running/fitness goals later in the year than breaking rather 1:50 now.

Crap. She’s right. I have a tri to start training for soon, and I’ll probably be running a fall marathon (still not sure which one), so I do need a little break…from trying to PR at halfs. I still have Zooma and Brooklyn Halfs coming up, which I may just run for funsies, and I still may do the More/Fitness Half, again, for funsies. I also have my eyes on some of the shorter NYRR races coming up.

What about you? Can you go right from training for one event to another or do you need some time off so you don’t get burnt out?