Not Craft: Why I Run

I love running. I really love it. It's such a source of happiness, a saviour, a form of meditation, a pick me up, a refresher. Some days I'd even go so far as to say it feels life changing.
That feeling you get when you wake up and you feel groggy, grumpy, kind of sweaty and you don't think jumping in the shower will do the trick.  That all goes away when you run around for 45 minutes, pretending you look like Nicki Minaj. This is something of a delusion, the reality is my booty may be the same size, the rest of my measurements...not so much.
Sometimes, my inner voice is saying "stay at home, the sofa is warm and the hot chocolate, so comforting, your curves are perfect. Don't go changing". Then I remind myself of the tyres around my waist, the serotonin that feels so good and the lightness of heart that I get after a run. So I go and I go and I go and I go. And it's worth it every. Single. Time. To let your whole body go kind of loose, to knacker yourself out physically and to use muscles that don't normally get used. It's pretty liberating, I have to say.
It's safe to say I'm a fan. And sometimes, I even end up actually running the whole way round, as opposed to running for ten minutes and walking for five.  But lately, despite still running about twice a week, I have been getting a bit bored and lacking motivation. I think I may be in the minority with the Nicki Minaj thing but I know lots of other people lose motivation at times too. What do you do to keep yourself motivated?  Do you run regularly? Do you train for races? If so, when you're not training, how do you keep yourself motivated? How do you find different routes or do you stick to the same one every time?
If you run at all, I'd love to hear from you. If you don't run, I urge you to give it a go, even if you end up walking most of the way.  It's so nice to just let your whole body flail around a green space for an hour or so.