Motivation is waning

Before talking about my running, I must talk about my life in general first. Shawn has now taken to hauling loads of pipe, or whatever else he finds available for loads, across the country. He started out this week. He left early yesterday morning to head to Texas. He'll get home at bedtime tonight and leave early in the morning to load up and go back to Texas. He won't be back again until Friday. While he's giving up precious time with Bennett (and I suppose me, too), he will be able to make quite a bit of money. This is in hopes that we can pay the house off, get a bunch saved and me be able to be home with Bennett and help him with books sometime in the (hopefully not far away) future. I've been very spoiled in that I only had to get myself ready in the morning and supper was on the stove when I got home most nights. Now, I have to get myself up and ready, Bennett up and ready, drop him off at daycare (where he spends way more hours there than he used to), get home, make a meal, fit in my run, all the other household things I need to do, gardening, entertaining a 2 year old, and finding a moment to relax a bit. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the thought of this, but I'm certain I'll get into a groove and it will be just fine.

For the last 2 weeks I've been struggling with getting up and out of bed and getting myself to work. It's not that I hate my job, it's just been hard to go. I think I've been stuck in the office too much and not moving around at all.

I went for a run outside on Sunday. The humidity was at 90%. Holy crap, that sucked. We were heading to Cedar for "coffee" so I had Shawn drop me off at Duke's hill on the highway so I could run into town. It ended up being about 2.75 miles. I ran the entire first mile at a faster pace than I'm used to (weird not having the treadmill to keep me at an even pace). After that, I had to walk some. I walked 1 minute, ran 4 minutes and continued that a bit, then moved to run 2 minutes, walk 1 minute for the last bit. I ended up running about a 12:00 mile pace, which is still quite slow, but with the humidity, I felt it wasn't bad for me.

Today, I was back on the treadmill since it's just me and Bennett at home. He was great and entertained himself. I don't know if it was me not eating anything since noon today or what, but man did I feel like crap. I ran the first mile at about an 11:00 mile pace. About what I normally do on the treadmill. I couldn't force myself to push through my mental block so stopped to walk a minute at 1.25 miles. Then I ran 0.5 miles at about a 10:15 minute pace. Then I was literally a mess. My legs weren't horrible and my breathing was okay, but I was lightheaded. I felt horrible. I ended up jogging slowly for 0.25 miles and calling it quits. I had planned a 35 minute jog, but ended with 2.12 miles in 24:46. Ugh.

I'm struggling with my motivation to keep going at this point. Logically, I know that I just need to jog at my own pace, be patient, etc, etc, but that is a huge struggle for me. I really had to talk myself into getting on the treadmill tonight and that's the first time that has happened. I want to keep going. Even if I never attempt running a 1/2 marathon like I'd love to do, I want to keep going. I'm struggling with me thinking this should be getting easier, but it really isn't. I'm hoping that I'm just in stress overload and when things calm down a bit, I'll feel better and motivation will be on the upswing again. Oh yeah, I also have the 2 mile run for my alumni this weekend. I'm a bit freaked out. When I ran in Albion, I ran 25:01. I wanted to run a 22:00 or better, but I really don't know if that's possible, especially if the humidity is like it has been. I know it's for fun, but I would really like to see an improvement. I would also like to be able to push through my mental block and run the whole time and not stop for a walk break period, but who knows. I recently read a book by former Olympian runner, Jeff Galloway. He has trademarked the run/walk/run method. He firmly believes in taking walk breaks at a set ratio throughout your entire run. His philosophy is it saves you mentally and physically and helps you cut time off your run in the end, or allows you to run farther and feel the same as you would have running far less. For example, if you take walk breaks as he suggests, you can run 8 miles, but feel the same as if you'd only run 5miles, which helps with endurance, calorie/fat burn, etc. I may try this, but for some reason feel like a failure because I won't be running continuously. Why do I care? I don't know!!!

Hopefully, my motivation picks back up again and soon.