'Tis the season, y'all, for all the things! Holiday decorations, shopping, parties, end of year budgets; oh yeah, and my kid just told me there is a band concert tomorrow. What!?
There is a lot of juggling right now in our household. Last night, I was on my way home from picking up our oldest daughter at her first day of driver's ed (yes, exciting and terrifying all at the same time), and I called my husband to let him know I was stopping at Michaels on the way home (because much to his surprise, no I did not have enough crafting supplies in the house). His response was not that I already have enough glitter and ribbon and bells; it was, "okay, but remember we have that dinner."
I had not remembered.
It's peak stress season and it also means a lot of early mornings and a lot of late nights as we work to fit it all in. As a result, it can be really hard to find the motivation to get out the door to get in a run this time of year, especially because I also do not have any big runs coming up - so no training plan. I recently wrote an entire post about the antidote for motivation being discipline; but I wanted to give this topic a little more discussion, especially during this season.
This is the time of year when all the non-holiday things and non-urgent items get punted until the new year. "We'll meet about that after the new year." "Let's tackle that in the new year." "We haven't seen each other in so long; can we grab coffee in the new year?"
Even my next running goals are waiting until the new year to be set. Mostly because I don't really know what I want to tackle next. I've checked several races off my bucket list. Should I work on speed next? Should I work on some goals around half marathons (my favorite of all race distances)? I don't know and it isn't urgent and it definitely isn't holiday specific, so setting those goals can all wait until the new year.
Motivation to run right now is very low. I'm a morning runner. It's been pretty frosty in the mornings and my bed has been very warm. We are busy and I am not immersed in a training plan.
I can come up with almost any excuse not to run.
But...I am still waking up and getting those miles in three days a week.
Why?
For starters, I am way less rage-y when I run first thing. Rage-y probably isn't exactly the right way to describe it; but let's just say that when I run, I find that I have a lot more patience during the day.
I have also set two micro-goals for myself this year. Typically, when I come out of a big run and a long training season, I take a lot of time off from running. Like a lot. Usually at least a month, sometimes more depending on what's going on. I mean, come on people, I just ran an ultramarathon. What am I going to do next? I am going to sit and I am going to sleep in, and I am definitely NOT doing any hill repeats.
However, I made a conscious decision coming out of the ultra that I wanted to stay race ready. Not race ready for an ultramarathon; calm down. I am talking race ready for a 10k or maybe a half. Just ready so that when I do start training in earnest, I spend less time being angry at myself for sitting for so long. What does that look like? For me, from now until the end of the year, I am running 3 times per week between 3 and 5 miles each run. It's manageable, I don't have to get up in an hour that starts with 4 to get my run done, and I don't spend hours out on the weekends. Plus, I stay less rage-y and more in shape. Check and check!
The other micro-goal I set for myself this year is hitting 2023 miles by December 31. When I was approaching the end of ultra training, I realized that I would be within reach of that and decided that I wanted to hit it simply for the satisfaction of doing it. That's it. I am not doing all of those as running miles, some of them are walking miles. But it means I have to run or walk 4.1 miles every day between now and the end of the year. I've got this.
Since motivation is fleeting, I am finding ways to stay disciplined by having a manageable plan that fits within the holiday season, small goals that I can celebrate in a relatively short time period, and knowing that putting the work in now will pay off later, even if I don't know exactly what my next big goals are. As for what my next running goal is...we can circle back to that in the new year!