Motivation – Page 2 – My Second Running Life

Find Your “Why”

As I started thinking about this piece, I found a podcast on Todd Malcolm’s No Limits Triathlon website which helped me a lot. It’s Episode 151 (“Why do you train for triathlons?”) Kudos Todd, and thanks for the inspiration!

So, here’s a question for you: Have you ever thought about why you run?

(Feel free to substitute your own go-to activity for running, in what follows. I think it’s a valuable exercise, whatever the activity.)

There is a tendency to focus on the “what” of running, rather than the “why”. I might even go so far as to say that running has a “what” problem.

I recently overheard two runners engaged in an animated conversation. Their talk was all about the “what”… upcoming races and new technical gear. Make no mistake, these are important topics of discussion, and I know they can be very exhilarating. If you were to include discussions about training mileage and pace, I’d guess you have the “what” of running totally covered.

This is understandable, but in some ways unfortunate.

We live in a society that focuses to a large extent on “what” questions, often in the realm of personal and professional achievements. So it’s hardly surprising that the running community sees the same reality. For runners, there’s always another must-do race, the latest shoe, or a new sure-fire workout.

Here are a couple of recent product announcements that caught my eye:

Adidas announced its latest high-performance shoe, the Adios Pro Evo 1. It’s a disposable shoe that is good for one marathon and sells for $650 CDN. Was it a coincidence that this announcement was made just before the B.A.A. announced its time cut-off for the 2024 Boston Marathon? Maybe. But there may soon be more demand for that shoe than Adidas can handle.
Garmin announced a series of luxury GPS devices, the MARQ smartwatches, that will go for about $4,000 CDN. They feature a lot of titanium and carbon fibre, and according to Garmin, they are “built for greatness, so you can achieve yours”. I’m not sure how they will do that, but I admit they do look nice.

If you compete or just follow athletics, you understand this pressure… the pressure to always be improving. Acquiring. Checking boxes. Maybe you even thrive on it.

What’s my point? Well, I feel that for whatever good this pressure can do, it can also lead us to miss the whole point of running. We shouldn’t forget to consider the “why”. The “why” has nothing to do with equipment, races or training schedules.

You won’t find your why by adding things to your regimen. Instead, you should consider subtracting things. The why is inward-looking.

Ask yourself this: if you didn’t have a major goal race to motivate you; if you had to make do without the latest shoes or GPS watch; if you couldn’t track your training pace or upload your workouts to Strava, would you still run?

If the answer to this question is yes, then you are starting to get at the why.

If you are willing to go further with this mental exercise, try writing down some thoughts on your “why”. Maybe you enjoy the intrinsic benefits of running… how you feel while you are doing it. Maybe running is a place of refuge when the stress of everyday life seems overwhelming. Maybe you relish the camaraderie of long, easy runs with your friends. Or the challenge of setting hard goals, and then methodically doing the work needed to achieve them. You know, the work that no one sees.

I hope that by being able to define whatever special benefits you get from running, you will be better able to enhance its indispensable role in your life.

For me, it’s quite simple.

Running makes me a better person. I think more clearly, I work more efficiently and I believe (hope?) I’m more empathetic in my dealings with other people after a run. I learned these things several years ago, when I faced the prospect of not having running in my life.

You may have guessed that I won’t be on the wait list for any disposable shoes.

Until next time, happy running!

Dealing with Low Motivation

A great last-minute gift idea for the athlete (or non-athlete) on your list. Get it on Amazon or at your favourite independent bookstore!

Do you ever feel that you’ve lost your motivation to run?

It happens to all of us. Maybe you’ve recently finished a major goal race, or you’re just not sure what your goals are. You feel like you’re going through the motions.

Whatever the reason, you should know that you’re not alone in feeling low on motivation from time to time.

Getting through these inevitable low stretches can be a challenge. When this happens to me, I trust my instincts. I remind myself that running is an essential part of who I am. I know I won’t feel this way forever.

Here are a few thoughts on managing feelings of low motivation.

(1) If you need a break, take it

Could your lack of motivation be a signal that you’re physically burned out? If so, take a break from running. It doesn’t have to be a long break, or even a predetermined timeframe, unless of course you’re injured or you’ve just run a goal race of anything more than 10k. In that case, you should make sure you take your full, well-earned recovery.

Burned out? (Elbow Drive, Calgary, 2020)

If your body is telling you that you’ve overdone it, there’s no downside to taking a hiatus. Think about it as some fun time away from running. During your break, you should fill your running time with something else: ride a bike, or swim. Maybe take up the guitar. You’ll almost certainly miss running and want to get back to it before too long. And when you do, you’ll probably find you are fully motivated.

(2) Forget structured training

When we’ve finished a race buildup, especially if we nailed our goal time, the last thing we want to contemplate is backing away from that structured environment. After all, we lived in a world of tightly managed, regimented training for months. But give it a try. Your low motivation could be as simple as being emotionally spent from too much structure… too much focus. It’s almost as if you’re trapped.

If you think this might be the issue, run to perceived effort for a while, not a target pace. Give yourself permission to back away from weekly mileage totals and hard workouts, which you should be doing anyway if you’re recovering from a goal race. I’d recommend forgetting about structured training for at least that long. The hardest part might be getting over the feeling that you’ll lose fitness. In the long run, you’ll be better off if you come back emotionally charged for the next build-up.

(3) Try a new running challenge

One of the tricks that has worked for me when I feel unmotivated is to commit myself to a different running challenge than I might normally pursue.

For me, the local Strides Run Streak is an ideal way to end the running year. I like it because in addition to the totally achievable (one mile per day) running goal, I incorporate a photographic element into my daily runs. I’m giving myself goals that have nothing to do with pace or distance. To me, it’s like a series of small tests that I know I can pass, even if the running is easy and most (but not all) of the pictures aren’t keepers.

Find your own challenge: maybe you could sign up for a winter cross-country race series like the one the Calgary Roadrunners put on every year. Do an urban orienteering event. Or try a month of weekly parkruns. My advice is to look for something that isn’t high stakes.

(4) Remind yourself why you run

The final thought I will leave you with if you’re feeling unmotivated is that we sometimes get too caught up in the process of training and racing. I call it the “what” of running. Sure, there’s nothing to match the feeling of achieving a goal. By doing so, we get instant validation and tangible evidence of our progress as amateur athletes.

I think the problem comes when we set up an endless cycle of goal setting, which can get in the way of the pure joy that comes from just running.

Missing the “why”? (Sedona Rainbow, 2021)

My advice is to remember the “why” for our running. I suggest you do a bit of reflection on this question. Write down three things that you get from running, things that have nothing to do with goals or target races.

Before you know it, you’ll be back with a renewed commitment to the sport we love.

Recommended Reads

I recently read two well-known books in the running genre, one after the other. Once a Runner and Marathon Woman couldn’t be more different, so this piece shouldn’t be taken as a straight-up comparison. Still, it was useful to contrast (on one hand) a niche novel from a bygone era and (on the other) a personal memoir of one of the most compelling characters from that same era.

I’ll start with Parker’s book.

I had a copy of Once a Runner on my reader long before I read it. The idea of a fictional story set in the milieu of a university track and field team interested me, but less than, say, a memoir of one of the great runners from history. True stories just resonate more with me, I guess.

When I did finally dive in, the book was fine. Three out of five stars. Parker is a competent writer, but I found his characters to be thinly developed. I never really warmed up to the protagonist, Quenton Cassidy, a talented and driven miler. Cassidy’s mentor is the mysterious Bruce Denton. He isn’t the best role model, if I judge solely on how much he made me feel like going out for a run myself. And the female characters in the book don’t ever rise above the status of bit players or afterthoughts. There was quite a lot of 1970s-era stereotyping here too.

I found the plot totally predictable. But that flaw didn’t bother me too much, as I had minimal expectations for the story anyway.

What I liked in the book were Parker’s nuanced and detailed descriptions of distance training and racing. (This is no surprise, as the author was a talented runner who trained with the great Frank Shorter in Florida.) Sure, my days as an amateur track runner are well in the past, but I could fully relate to everything that Cassidy experiences as he prepares for and runs the climactic race—against a tough Kiwi, based with absolutely no disguise on the real-life John Walker—that closes the book. Anyone who has built up to a goal race would benefit from reading that part of the story.

Overall, Once a Runner will appeal most to dedicated students of the sport and hardcore enthusiasts. Even so, if you’re like me, you’ll probably have many other choices on your reading list. When you find yourself with a gap, you might give it a try.

The connection between my highlighted books may rest in the zone of those same societal stereotypes. In fact, Marathon Woman by Kathrine Switzer is the story of a dedicated young woman’s fight to break down those barriers.

I knew a little about Switzer, mostly from her infamous on-course encounter with Jock Semple when she ran as the first legitimate female entrant in the 1967 Boston Marathon.

Once I started into her book, I had trouble putting it down. Switzer writes in a comfortable style. While I wouldn’t say her book is aimed at a female audience—I really hope men read it—I did learn more about things like panty girdles than I ever thought I would.

That said, it’s the essence of her story that is so impactful—her long, solitary battle to gain recognition for women in distance running. The next time you stand on the starting grid for a race, look around at the women who have embraced running as a key part of their lifestyle. That’s what we all can thank Switzer for. She does a great job in the book of explaining the hurdles she had to overcome to make that possible.

Beyond her dedication as an advocate for change in women’s athletics, I had no idea how passionately Switzer pursued opportunities for women in other sports. Thanks to her diligent and courageous efforts, which are admittedly still a work in progress, women now compete on a more or less equal footing with men in many sports. I look at the Women’s World Cup which just started as an example. What a legacy Switzer has earned.

I think you can tell which of these two books I would recommend to my friends.