Motivation - Where does it come from? Where does it go?

Motivation? What's Motivation?

It's kind of ironic that I have been planning to do this post on motivation for several days now. I just wanted to get through yesterday's race so that I could download the pictures from my phone that I was planning to use in this post. The reason for the irony? I'm sitting here struggling to find the motivation to work on this post and I haven't even downloaded the pictures yet. 

So before I talk about where I find motivation for running in particular let me talk briefly about why I'm struggling with lack of motivation today. My knee hurts! It's as simple as that. When I was in Missouri for the MO Cowbell Half I banged my left knee against a trailer hitch and gave it a good knock. At the time I didn't think anything about it except it hurt right then. A few days later near the end of a six mile run my knee went out on me but at the time I didn't put the two things together. After walking for a few minutes I was able to run again and then ran the half marathon with no pain or discomfort.

Since then though the tweaked feeling has come back from time to time. It causes me to change my running form a bit and then usually goes away. In yesterday's race it acted up again but I was able to run through it with a little limp and eventually ran normally again. My race actually turned out as well as I hoped it would so even with the half mile or so of bad form I still met my goal. 

So what does that have to do with lack of motivation? It bothered me during the night when I woke up and it feels a little sore this morning so I'm caught in that place where I don't know whether to train through it or rest it. I decided that at least for today I would rest it and as a result I feel unmotivated to do anything. The good news is that I recognize it and I have been making myself get some things done.

Yesterday's race was the Move Your Bones 5k. This was the third year in a row that I have run it. It is a well run event with only one negative. They don't bring in any restrooms so we are literally stuck with one two stall park restroom and that's ridiculous. One other thing I wish they would do but I'm probably in the minority is present the awards as soon as the results are available instead of doing the entire raffle first. It was worse this year than years past because they brought in a truck load of pumpkins and raffled them off before results were given. I did win a manicure though that I gave to my sister, so it wasn't all bad.

Like I said before the topic of this post was simply going to be how and where I get motivation and I really did give it a lot of thought the past couple of weeks. Sometimes when you spend a lot of time prepping for an event, in our case the MO Cowbell Half Marathon, once it's over there can be a let down and that is when motivation may suffer. I actually had four different things that I used to get mine back and not all of them intentional.

Motivators

Nature whether it is beautiful sunrises, weather change, wildlife, seasonal changes, or all of the above can be a serious positive motivator.

Books have always been a strong source of motivation for me and I never know what book it might be that may have a motivating effect on me. The book pictured here certainly did that. I found the book at Half Priced Books when I was in Missouri. I wasn't looking for anything in particular but saw it and picked it up. It is a well written description of how the author became a serious runner. 

The FitBit on my wrist was a gift for house and pet sitting for some friends for a week. The reason it became part of my renewed motivation is that it gives a concrete record of what I am doing and how I am doing it. It's not necessarily any different than a program on my phone but it is a fun way to track distance, time, water intake, sleep and so on.

Finally probably my greatest motivator is the calendar book that I use to schedule races for the coming year. I still have at least 5 races scheduled for the remainder of this year and I'm already planning one for New Year's Day but the planner makes it possible to look even further out and having goals is absolutely necessary for motivation.

St. Louis Trip - Part 8 Traveling Home Days 3 & 4

When I left Albuquerque I was going to Williams, Arizona where I was going to stay for the night after visiting the Grand Canyon. I had planned to visit the Canyon on the way to Missouri but when I got in touch with Kristy she told me they were in town and would be around that night I decided that I would rather drive on to Albuquerque and visit. 

I had been to the Grand Canyon twice before. The first time was in 1989 I think when Jackie, Stacie and I drove out to visit my Uncle in San Diego. The second time was in 2000 when I saw the Canyon from the river for 18 days when we rafted 216 miles of the Colorado. My first thoughts upon arriving were, "my god it's worse than Disneyland" and "I can't believe that I drove here for this". The traffic to get in was unreal. There was a sign that said, "Commercial traffic must use the right lane". It didn't say that others couldn't use the right land so I drove past literally hundreds of cars and wow was I abused. Then people realized that it actually was an open lane and I led a parade. It was ridiculous. The sign didn't say, "Only commercial vehicles in the right lane". I literally saved myself at least an hour in line because I understood the English language. (That's not a criticism of the tourists who didn't but of the loud mouths and low lifes who yelled at me as I drove past). 

Anyway back to the Canyon, after driving around through four parking lots and finally finding a space I joined the line for the restroom. Then I followed the signs and the crowd to the Rim Trail and all the negative feelings I had disappeared as soon as I saw the beauty of the canyon again. I'm not even going to waste time trying to describe it I'm just going to show some pictures.

The beauty made the trip all worthwhile and the negative seem pretty insignificant. Would I go back to the Grand Canyon? Absolutely! But as I tell my grandkids, "You've got to have PATIENCE!"

The final highlight of the trip to the Canyon was seeing this guy as I was pulling out of the parking lot to head back to Williams for my final night on the road.

Friday morning I left for the drive home and on the way I drove through a couple of different parts of old Route 66. This final picture is of the approach from the east to Ludlow as well as scenery around Ludlow. We lived there briefly when we were in grade school while my Dad was working on a pipeline through the desert. 

People have asked me if I would drive rather than fly again after having done it and my answer is absolutely. We live in a beautiful country and I'm blessed to have that opportunity to see so much of it.

St. Louis Trip - Part 7 Traveling Home Days 1 & 2

I decided to go home by a different route at least part of the way so that I could stay a night in Colorado Springs and try to see some friends. The long one day drive from St. louis to the Springs reminded me why I stopped doing it. By the time I got to the Springs I had traveled through a downpour and a hail storm. It was more like a summer storm than Fall. 

Between the drive and the weather I was happy to get a chance to get together with Joe and have pizza. I told a couple of the other guys that we would have to catch up next time because I was going to crash early and hit the road early the next morning because even though I didn't have a very long drive, I was just going to Albuquerque but I wanted to visit Great Sand Dunes National Park on the way.

The first thing I saw the next morning was a squirrel waiting at the door of the motel office. As I was walking up, the door opened, the squirrel was handed his breakfast and he left. When I went in the office they told me that he showed up every morning there for breakfast.

After leaving the Springs I drove south to Walsenburg and then turned west to go over LaVeta Pass to the San Luis Valley and on to Great Sand Dunes National Park. I'm really glad that I decided to take the side trip because it was a really unique locale. As is often the case, pictures don't do it justice.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

After spending some time at the park I continued on my trip to Albuquerque. I was going to spend the night with Ken and Kristy again and I didn't plan to get there until after 5:30 so I still had time for some side trips. I stopped for lunch in Antonito, Colorado and then entered New Mexico. I made a quick stop in Santa Fe, a place I had not been to for many years. It really is a unique southwestern city and worth visiting at least once.

I decided rather than take I 25 to I 40 and then backtrack I would drive the Turquoise Trail a route I had never driven in all my travel from Colorado to New Mexico and back. It was an interesting drive with some really unique old communities to see. I stopped in Cerrillos to see the old town and then Madrid, a community that felt like a throwback to the 1960's. While driving through Madrid I saw a store with a bunch of bookshelves full of books on the porch and of course I pulled in immediately. Surprisingly they didn't sell the books and magazines, you could take what you wanted and leave a donation if you wanted to, which I did. 

Madrid

Golden

My final side trip on the drive was up the road to the top of Sandia Crest. It was a typical climb up and back on a ski road with some beautiful trees and views, including a couple of deer next to the road. The best part about the drive is that I now know where many of the trailheads are if I should return to the area and want to hike. 

When I arrived at Ken and Kristy's I another great visit catching up, some delicious green chili stew made with sweet potatoes instead of potatoes and some wine from a friends vineyard. It really is funny how we have some friends that we can not see for not just years but decades and keep in touch with only a Christmas card every year and yet when you get back together it's as if you've been in regular communication. One of the real blessings of this trip was reconnecting with the Meunier's.

St. Louis Trip - Part 6 MO' Cowbell Half Marathon

Stacie fixed a good pasta dinner on October 3rd because the next morning we were getting up early to go to St. Charles and run the MO' Cowbell Half Marathon. I was really looking forward to it because it would be Stacie's first half marathon and I was hoping she would someday be able to make the time to train to run one while I was still running them. Tom and I have now done 9 together but this was the best because we were able to share the experience with Stacie. And it was an experience!

We got lucky with the weather even though it was a little cool we all just wore layers and we were comfortable. There was some wind from time to time but nothing unreasonable. As far as the course goes there was only one hill of any real significance and it wasn't steep just long and steady between miles 9 and 11. The real negative for the course was twofold. First we were hoping to run at least part of it along the river on the Katy Trail and none of it actually did that. The second and more significant was that there was too much cement that we had to run on. Even a lot of the actual streets were cement as opposed to asphalt which is much more forgiving. 

Who knows what the future brings as far as additional half marathons. I can't even say right now if I will do more halfs but I know the three of us will hopefully keep running a lot more races together. 

And how did we spend the rest of the day? Stacie took Haley to a birthday party. Tom took Chase to hockey practice where he also coaches. And me? I watched football.

St. Louis Trip - Part 5 The best part - Family

While there were a lot of good times on this trip the best time was spending time with family. Just hanging out and enjoying being with Stacie, Tom, Chase and Haley while they live their busy lives. At my age I would be exhausted if I had to try to keep up with them all the time. On the first Friday that I was there we went to dinner at a really good Mexican restaurant that we could walk to from the house and then we walked a little further and went to a BBQ Bash. It was a really good time with some very good music by a band from Ireland.

The rest of the weekend was a "typical" weekend for the kids. Chase had hockey practice on Saturday where he received his home uniform. I went with Chase and Tom while Stacie and Haley had a transportation fair to attend. It was a fundraiser for Stacie's job. 

On Sunday I got to share in a big milestone as Chase had his first official hockey game. It is amazing to me how much he has gone from just learning to skate to playing competitive hockey. He just seems to be growing up so fast. 

Jackie and I both got to see his first game and of course his best fan Haley was right there with her "kid's temperature" hot chocolate from Starbucks. His other grandparents and his aunt Kate will be able to watch him play later this month when they visit. He's excited that we all got to watch him play but I bet we're more excited that we got to see him. 

What I am so impressed by with my daughter and son-in-law is how they always make time for the kids. They are both busy with their jobs, in particular Tom's traveling and Stacie's crazy schedule particularly as she establishes herself in a new role. But the kids and each other are still obviously their most important priority. And even as busy as they are they still have to say no to things so they can take a breath. I'm really proud of them both for the way they realize the importance of working together for family and making sure they appreciate each other in their crazy hectic lives.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, I had brought a book with me that I was given by Joe on my last trip to Colorado. I hadn't read it yet and didn't know if I would on this trip but after finishing a Twain book and a book that Tom recommended to me I decided to read it while I had time. The book is, Addicted to Busy- Recovery for the Rushed Soul by Brady Boyd a pastor from Colorado Springs. I enjoyed the book mostly because Boyd didn't have any easy answers and didn't pretend that he did. There was some good advice however; for example knowing when to say no and how just saying no to some things can make a big difference in your available time and lowering stress.

He quoted Wayne Muller, "This one little conversation, this one extra phone call, this one quick meeting, what can it cost? But it does cost, it drains yet another drop of our life. Then, at the end of days, weeks, months, years, we collapse, we burn out, and cannot see where it happened. It happened in a thousand unconscious events, tasks, and responsibilities that seemed easy and harmless on the surface but that each, one after the other, used a small portion of our precious life".

He also shared the importance of recognizing the fact that you aren't a lesser person simply because you didn't get everything done.

"Expanding the idea beyond the walls of a church, we think if we don't get every room vacuumed, every bookshelf dusted, every meal made by hand, every child's homework folder initialed, every birthday party attended, every plant watered, every inch of grass mowed, every load of laundry folded, every lacrosse practice made, every book read, every app mastered, every televised sporting event watched, every everything done, we will somehow be lesser human beings". In response to that all I can say is AMEN! We have to know when it is ok to simply say no or to let things go. It'll all work out in the end.

Finally, he quoted a prayer from A New Zealand Prayer Book. The prayer is called "A Night Prayer" and is one that I think we should all consider praying daily: "It is night after a long day. What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done, let it be."

It was a good time visiting.

Just as I did at Joe's in Colorado I spent a lot of pleasant time reading and just watching nature from their deck.

While it was still early Fall I got to see a lot of beautiful changes on my runs.

Another milestone that was taking place while I was there was Chase losing his first tooth, a process that lasted almost as long as I was there. He was finally successful in getting it out when he ate an apple on his way back from a scouting day with Tom.

Before I left I had to make a point to go back to El Maguey and enjoy another meal. Tom was working and Chase was in school so after Haley got out of school we went for lunch. It was good again!

 I'm grateful that I can share time in their lives a couple of times a year.