Motivation: Lost and Found

After 6 years in the sport, I suppose it was just a matter of time before I lost some motivation to train. It’s been a few months, and I’ve found it again (hooray!), which is why I’m writing this today, but, oh my goodness, for a while it was not good.

So what happened? I trained hard last year until Ironman Lake Tahoe in September. I knew after the race was over that I’d have a lot of “life stuff” going on. I came back from California and finished the process of buying a house. I moved into it. I prepared for and gave a huge presentation at work. And then after that, I traveled for work every other week for 6 weeks, which is completely out of the ordinary for me. Then came the holidays…I could go on. It also didn’t help that my most motivating training partner had back surgery and wasn’t available to work out with me for a couple of months.

It’s really easy to let all of those things become excuses not to train, and that’s what I did. For the first time in years, I skipped workouts. A bunch of them. I always had great excuses for it.

So what happens when you don’t train for a couple of months? You lose fitness. You get a little bit fat. You have a crappy performance at a race that you signed up for “just for fun,” and you realize that that isn't very fun. You start to lose confidence in your ability. You don’t feel good about yourself.

Getting into Norseman in November was the motivation I needed to at least show up to every workout, even though at first, I was still just going through the motions for many of them. I’ve been training for the Houston marathon, which is in 2 weeks, and I’ve got a pretty big goal for it: to qualify for Boston. My running times over the last 2-3 months have been ridiculously slow compared to the winter marathon build I did last year. I started to really doubt myself and lost all of the confidence that had grown over the last year and a half. I asked my coach, should I still be shooting at this goal? Is it ridiculous? And she said, let’s just see what happens.

Little by little, over the past 6 weeks, my motivation has been returning. I’ve been working harder and harder at every workout session. I’m watching my diet again. I’m starting to feel like myself. And guess what? My run times are improving. Thank goodness.

Looking forward to the road ahead.

Motivation for this sport takes many shapes and can change over time. At first it’s just seeing if you can train to finish a particular event. Maybe then it’s competing with your friends. Maybe it’s chasing a cute boy on a bike. Eventually though, it all comes back to internal motivation: how badly do you want it? That’s what it takes to be great. That’s what it takes to get out there and do the work every day, even when it’s cold, or early, or dark, or raining.

The best reminder for me came a week ago, from one of my new Big Sexy Racing teammates. Christine Cross, winner of Ironman Louisville last year, posted this on Instagram:

I've heard versions of this before. What I love about this is the reminder that someone at Christine’s level is still thinking this way – it’s never easy, and the only way to excel is to work hard at it every day. Hard work works. There’s no way around it.

I feel recharged and motivated to tackle the challenges ahead this year. And I'll say this with confidence: you might beat me, but it’s not going to be because you trained harder than me. I’m going to do everything I can, in every workout, to be focused and to improve myself for the season ahead, so that I can reach the Big Goals that I’ve set – a BQ, a black T-shirt at Norseman.

Happy New Year! And happy training. Let’s go chase some dreams!