One of the things about a long-term, difficult to achieve goal like a marathon is that it leaves ample opportunities to have bad days. For me and this marathon that can mean days when I don’t meet my goals for speed or duration, days when my motivation flags, days when I think maybe I don’t want to do this and days when I think maybe I can’t.
There are lots of different ways that I deal with bad days:
If I was slower than I wanted to be, I remind myself that improvement is more of a roller coaster than an escalator that goes straight up and I review my longer term progress to remind myself that I’m still on track.
If I have to cut a session short, or miss a session, I remind myself that it’s a long road and that things happen sometimes and that’s ok.
If I find my motivation waning I go full-on cheesy – inspirational songs, stuff on pinterest, the rah rah sayings on the walls of my gym, whatever it takes to get myself back into a good, positive, optimistic place.
When it comes to marathon training the truth is that it’s a long term commitment to doing something that I don’t really like to do, for a goal that I really want to achieve. I chose that, I accept it, and part of that for me is not just doing the training but also doing the work to keep myself in a good place mentally.
So, in the selfish interest of having more good stuff for my bad days, please feel free to post your favorite inspirational songs/pictures/things to get over a bad day etc. in the comments!
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