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.