Tomorrow I’ll run in the Foot Traffic Flat. It’s my favorite July 4th tradition besides shooting off bottle rockets in the street. (Hooray Oregon fireworks laws! Such a big deal for an Arizona girl. Fireworks were illegal when I was a kid and I was always convinced that I’d get arrested for even a sparkler.)
Last year I ran it after a rigorous spring of training. It was my first half marathon and I took it seriously.
This year, not so much. My longest run in the last month was 8 miles, though about six weeks ago I think I did 15, so I’ll probably be ok. Or ok-ish.
Anyway, here’s what I’m doing today besides training:
- Watching Walking Dead and feeling vastly superior to stupid Lori. Also, figuring if I need motivation tomorrow, I’ll just pretend that a bunch of “walkers” are chasing me.
- Telling myself that having enough of a “base” to run a half marathon at really any moment is a thing. I don’t think it is but…
- Cleaning my sad, neglected house. I’ve been in a work cave for months and it shows in every aspect of life from my split ends to my dirty bathroom. Also see: Whoops, I forgot to train for this race. Also see: Whoops, I never freaking blog.
- Planning a cute running outfit tomorrow. I’m definitely going to be slow on the course, no need to look busted while doing it.
- Vowing to actually write some real things about surviving a race you didn’t really train for tomorrow after I’ve done it.
I am running my first half marathon in October and currently training for it on top of my busy life as a graduate student. Recently I had to force myself to clean the house (been neglected)… Also, I enjoy wearing cute running outfits because it obviously makes me run faster and look good doing it
I think your ‘walkers’ motivation is hilarious!
Good luck tomorrow!
Yes – I HIGHLY recommend training and not doing what I just did. Although… it wasn’t a bad race, but it definitely feels a lot better when you’ve actually logged the training miles! In a way, running while working on your MA – I find that stress motivates me to get going and that running decreases the stress. Good luck!
Yep, I completely agree with the ‘stress motivates me…running decreases stress!” statement! One of the reasons I decided to train for an event rather than just working out ‘whenever’ (since that plan did not work for me this past year)…