{"id":3919,"date":"2015-10-06T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elbowglitter.com\/blog\/?p=3919"},"modified":"2015-10-06T08:46:22","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T12:46:22","slug":"staying-motivated-during-the-off-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elbowglitter.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/06\/staying-motivated-during-the-off-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Staying Motivated During the Off-Season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
sogard<\/a> \/ Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was having a conversation with a coworker the other day about motivation.\u00a0 She had to defer a marathon because she was under trained.\u00a0 She was beating herself up about having lost all of the progress she had made from training for her last marathon.\u00a0 She had hoped that her body would just “remember” how to run marathons and her training wouldn’t be so bad.<\/p>\n

You can imagine how that went.<\/p>\n

I suggested she pick a spring half marathon and aim for that, give herself a halfway point towards her fall marathon.\u00a0 In discussing staying motivated, I told her how I have found that if I don’t have a race I’m actively working towards, I don’t put in the training I need to.\u00a0 As part of my motivation through the winter, I make sure to have a few races on my schedule.\u00a0 This winter, I have:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • SpaceCoast Half – November<\/li>\n
  • Disney 10k – January… and not super motivating, let’s be honest<\/li>\n
  • Donna Half – February<\/li>\n
  • Cherry Blossom Ten Miler – April<\/li>\n
  • Tink Half – May<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    I can’t give up my distance training if I have races coming up every few months.\u00a0 While over the winter I want to keep up all three triathlon disciplines, right now, I can tell that I have the most room for improvement on my bike, and I’m currently in a not-so-secret love affair with my bike trainer, so that one’s easy to stick to.\u00a0 But the treadmill is more of a love-hate relationship.\u00a0 If I weren’t pushing towards all of these races, it would be really easy to slack off and lose some of that distance base.<\/p>\n

    So for me, I use interim races to stay motivated.\u00a0 I want to run all of these races strong, but I’m not necessarily aiming for a PR at any of them, since that’s not my goal for the winter season.\u00a0 (My goal is to significantly improve my bike skills.\u00a0 And not gain 100 pounds over Christmas.)<\/p>\n

    If you don’t want to do interim races, maybe set a monthly mileage goal for yourself and reward yourself for hitting those goals.<\/p>\n

    Find something that will keep you motivated through the cold winter months and stick to your plan.\u00a0 You will be glad you did once spring racing starts.<\/p>\n

    (And if you live in Florida, what’s your excuse?\u00a0 Get out there and get running!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I was having a conversation with a coworker the other day about motivation.\u00a0 She had to defer a marathon because she was under trained.\u00a0 She was beating herself up about having lost all of the progress she had made from training for her last marathon.\u00a0 She had hoped that her body would just “remember” how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nStaying Motivated During the Off-Season - Elbowglitter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It can be hard to stay motivated during the off-season. 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A few people have asked me about my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Running"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2355,"url":"https:\/\/elbowglitter.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/29\/marathon-training-continues\/","url_meta":{"origin":3919,"position":3},"title":"Marathon training continues","date":"October 29, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Marathon training is officially moving forward.\u00a0 Saturday's long run was 12 miles, which I figured wouldn't be too bad, since two weeks prior, I ran the Baltimore Half. I was wrong.\u00a0 It was not a pretty run. I kept up my intervals, but I could just feel my body fighting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Running"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":852,"url":"https:\/\/elbowglitter.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/12\/marathon-training-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":3919,"position":4},"title":"Marathon Training Update","date":"October 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm about a month and a half into my official marathon training.\u00a0 So far, my longest run was this past Monday at about 14 miles (13.5 plus a warmup walk and cooldown walk).\u00a0 I'm not increasing distance again until the weekend of November 3\/4.\u00a0 I have the Baltimore Half Marathon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Running"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2210,"url":"https:\/\/elbowglitter.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/21\/no-rest-for-the-weary\/","url_meta":{"origin":3919,"position":5},"title":"No Rest for the Weary","date":"August 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"So while I'm still coming off of my triathlon high, I decided to look towards my next goal - the Walt Disney World Marathon in January. 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