Tag Archives: motivation

runner's road kill

Runner’s Road Kill! How This Mindset Can Improve Your Running

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runner's road kill

Road Kill Tallys Proudly displayed in a team relay

Road kill: n.  a runner left in your dust.

Traditionally Runner’s Road Kill counts are only kept when running 200 mile team relay races.  While you are running your leg of the race you tally in your head the number of runners you pass.

Once you have sufficiently fueled (with a sandwich and Coors Light of course, micro-brew if it’s your last leg!) you proudly get to add a tally to your teams total…Let’s be honest, if your like me it’s the very first thing you do when you get back to your car!

As you can tell, I’m a little competitive.

With spring coming out, I already see my running times improving and I will tell you my trick.  I don’t just keep road kill tallies on Relay Runs.  I keep a tally on all my runs.

In the winter when there are less runners on the road, it is easy for me to settle into a slower pace.  There are no runners to race.  With the arrival of spring and the sun comes the competition of more runners on my routes.

runner's road kill

Imagine how many Road Kill you could get in a race!

Focusing on passing someone ahead of you is much easier than pushing to maintain a speed.  When you aim to pass someone ahead of you, you keep your gaze forward.  You have better posture and a more efficient runner stride.

If your new to running don’t fret.  There are plenty of road kill for you too out there.  I see it completely acceptable to count walkers.  You are moving faster than they are.  If someone was walking in a Ragnar relay I would most certainly count them as Road Kill!

Once you move a comfortable distance ahead, there is no shame in slowly down…just remember road kill have a way of coming back to haunt you.   People don’t like to be passed 😉

cyber monday

Cyber Monday Decision

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cyber monday

Cyber Monday, the way I see it we have two choices—and no, neither of these have to do with online shopping.  Most likely we all ate way too much the past 4 days.  Thanksgiving usually sets the tone for the holiday season.  Often times we overeat at Thanksgiving.  This  leads to our brains prompting us to eat more fatty foods since our reward centers have been on overdrive.  The reward center works by releasing dopamine and serotonin when we eat sugary food.  When these chemicals dry up we crave more carbs and sugary foods.  This cycle will perpetuate during the holiday season as coworkers bring cookies into work and your friends make you their world famous pumpkin bread.  This is where our cyber Monday choice comes in.  We can choose to say I’ve already been so bad, what is one more cookie/pumpkin bread slice etc., or we can choose to use the “fuel” we stock piled over the weekend.

 

You’re already eaten poorly for the weekend.  You can’t change that, but instead of beating yourself up over what you may consider a mistake you can choose to see this as the KILLER WORKOUT week!  Following Thanksgiving, malls have Black Friday.  The internet has Cyber Monday.  I like to think of the week following Thanksgiving as Killer Workout Week.

If we follow a ketone cycling diet, we have all most likely indulged in far too many cheat meals within the past 4 days.  That doesn’t mean that our diet has been completely thrown out the window, nor does it mean we should continue to perpetuate this eating cycle until January 1st when we decide we have to lose the 20lbs we gained over the holiday!  No, what this means is that you will have plenty of glycogen stores to fuel your muscles for KILLER WORKOUTS all week long.

Stop feeling helpless and upset and instead take control over what you can do this week!  Maybe this week, you will finally deadlift 450lbs!  If you’ve been stuck at running 4 miles, today is the day to set out for 5.  If you’ve never tried crossfit take a class today knowing you’ll have the fuel to make it through!

Society will tell you overeating is bad—and while I am not telling you to go overeat all the time, what I will remind you, is food is fuel.  If you ate too much, all that means is your gas tank is overflowing.  Go burn some gas while it’s still fresh in your system!

autobiography in 5 short paragraphs

Autobiography in 5 Short Paragraphs

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An Autobiography in 5 Short Paragraphs
By Portia Nelson

1.
I walk down the street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I fall in.  I am lost.  I am helpless.  It isn’t my fault.  It takes forever to find a way out.

2.
I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I pretend I don’t see it.  I fall in.  I can’t believe I’m in the same place, but it isn’t my fault.  It still takes a long time to get out.

3.
I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I see it is there.  I still fall in.  It’s a habit.  My eyes are open.  I know where I am.  It is my fault.  I get out immediately.

4.
I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I walk around it.

5.

I walk down a different street.

autobiography in 5 short paragraphs

Do you like where your health is at?  Maybe you should do something different.  Don’t keep falling in that hole!  It isn’t enough to walk around your bad habits.  You have to learn to take another street.  Until then, you will keep falling in the hole.

 

A Case of the Mondays

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Looking through facebook today, I couldn’t help noticing how many people had “a case of the mondays.”  Just in case you aren’t aware of the meaning of this term, urban dictionary defines a case of the Mondays as, “symptoms of a useless or horrible Monday morning after returning from the weekend, used in the movie Office Space.”
a case of the mondays

Workouts on Monday (or any day after we’ve fallen out of our routine) can often feel this way.  When I’ve worked out a couple days in a row, I crave the time to myself on my yoga mat.  If I have too much on my schedule, I resent the rest of my day and can’t get the idea of a 30 min run out of my head.  Take a few days off though, and my body forgets how great it feels after!  All of a sudden, I can come up with countless chores and errands that trump even a short sweat session.

These are the days when you have to remind yourself to get out there and just do something.  Remember, you don’t need to have expectations for your workout.  Often on “Mondays” we feel like we have to no energy to do a quality workout.  Try to get a workout in anyway.  It might be your worst workout ever, but it’s better than the one you didn’t do.

Who knows, maybe you don’t have energy because you haven’t worked out in too long!  Getting your heart rate up wakes you up, circulating fresh blood and oxygen to your cells!  Maybe when you’re having a case of the Mondays, you need more than ever to go workout!

Now that I’ve written to you, I’m going to go cure my case of the Mondays with a track workout!  What is your go to workout when you don’t feel motivated?