Friday, January 14, 2011

A little extra motivation..

Today was the long run of the week, and since Somerville is still covered in piles and piles of snow then I grudgingly headed over to the gym to do my run indoors.  Ugh.  But I was a bit excited since this would be my first trip to my new gym, the local BSC.  There was hardly anyone else on the cardio floor when I picked a treadmill and started running.  The quirk about the treadmill was that it wouldn't allow me to run any longer than an hour - so after my hour was up I had to stop, and then restart again to finish up my last .9 of a mile.  I felt pretty good overall though, staying at a relaxed pace most of the way through and then kicking it up on the last mile to just under a 9:00/mile pace.  Overall, I did 6.5 miles in about 66 minutes (give or take a bit, considering my stop / restart).  My legs still felt fresh at the end of the run, which I was happy about and I was right around my target pace.  During my miles of running, I came up with a creative way to motivate myself over the next 3 months that remain before the marathon.  Last year, I fell far behind my target time and finished the marathon in 5:56.30.  I was, and still am thrilled to have finished my first ever marathon.  That said, I'm also a competitor - so to motivate myself to keep pushing hard in my training I decided that in addition to setting an overall time goal (which is 4:56 in case you were wondering) is to pledge that for every minute I cut off of last years time, I will donate two dollars to the DFMC team.  So, if I hit my goal time of 4:56 then that's 60 minutes, or $120.  I figured it's a unique way to motivate myself - and all for a great cause!  If you'd like to join my minutes for money challenge then let me know!  The more the better!

No comments:

Post a Comment