Movitation

I had a conversation with a friend over the weekend about motivation. He was amazed at my motivation to keep running as many mornings as possible. I was suprised that he found this exceptional.

My suprise was due to the fact that I am in the process, therefore, I don't see what it looks like to everyone else. I am just doing it.

Now that I have heard this perspective, I have taken some time to look at what it is that motivates me to get up so early and head out into freezing cold temperatures and run until my body aches, and then dig deep and run some more.

If you know me well, you know that this is not my normal behavior. I would much rather sleep in and maybe find an alternative excercise that doesn't require so much pain. So, I realized that I must be feeding off of a motivational source that I have never been exposed to before.

Finally I realized what it was. What kept me going everyday. It was my daughter.

I know that if I don't run, I won't loose the weight and my health will deteriorate over time and I won't be able to see my daughter grow up, or maybe I will see her grow, but not be able to interact in the ways that I want due to physical limitations later in life. Therefore, I run.

Now, you may be wondering why I don't take up a warmer activity when the mercury drops. This is because I also know that running burns more calories than just about any other excercise out there. Also, running is a cardiovascular workout for my heart too. Therefore, I run.

So, basically it boils down to the fact that I really enjoy parenthood and want to be there for my wife and daughter as long as possible. Therefore, I RUN!!

Getting Back To It!

So, it has been quite a while since I last posted here, and that has mainly been due to the fact that my wife and I recently welcomed a beautiful baby girl into this world.

I thought this might be a good opportunity to write on the topic of getting back to running after something has taken you away for a while. I found that this can be a very painful process because your body looses a lot of that conditioning that you have been working so hard for. And, it looses really fast.

For me, I had to start with walking/jogging again before I was able to start up with running like I used to. However, the key is to just keep moving forward, don't let anything slow you down and you will get there eventually.

Music has helped to keep me focused and I have read a lot of stuff about how music can help people maintain an exercise regimen. I was thinking I might share my playlist here in the not too distant future, first I have to do some pruning.

Running in the Dark

So, I usually run in the very early morning when it is still dark out. This leads to some interesting issues that I thought I might share. First off is the obvious darkness, this is easy to deal with given enough street lights. Unfortunately, not all the roads that I run have adequate lighting. My solution? Also obvious, a flashlight. However, while did start out with a normal flashlight, I have since advance (thanks to a present from my wonderful wife this past Christmas) to a rather high tech flashlight. The function that I find most useful of the flashlight I currently carry is the fact that it can change through a veritable rainbow of colors. Also, it has the ability to flash these colors in succession rather quickly. This function combined with the fact that this is a super bright LED flashlight helps me to feel safe running down the back roads sans street lighting.

Another issue that I am still trying to find the perfect solution for is the cold temperatures. Upstate NY is not known for balmy winters and this year has been no exception to that rule. I have gone through several combinations of various clothes and am still searching for the perfect set. This morning I stepped out wearing cotton thermals, a plain white tee-shirt, cotton sweatshirt, jeans, a jacket with insulated lining, convertible gloves/mittens, and an alpaca wool skull cap. This getup worked fairly well except that my lips and nose were quite cold by the end of my usual thirty minutes of running. So, as of right now, I am in search of something that will keep my lower face region warm, but still allow for adequate breathing (I tried a fleece neck warmer, but it didn't breath well enough and I felt as though I wasn't getting enough air.) If anyone reading this has any low cost suggestions, please feel free to comment.

Puddles

So, it rained here yesterday. A lot. As usual this created many puddles. Unfortunately, I did not anticipate the combination of bad sidewalk, no street lights and early morning darkness. Therefore, I ended up wading through several puddles before I decided to pull out my trusty flashlight. This helped only somewhat as several puddles were cleverly disguising themselves as slabs of sidewalk. The ice grips that my wife gave me for Christmas were somewhat helpful in avoiding the shallower puddles that I couldn't see, as they provided my shoes with an extra quarter of an inch of lift.

Also, I was shocked to see the virtual lake that had developed in front of the local gas station. Of course these puddles were thankfully not an issue on the highway as that has adequate slope that the water runs off. The only problem there was that the water was not running fast enough to prevent freezing. Which was not a problem for the cars, but the side of the roads don't always get the best salting.

As you may have already guessed, I did survive, but it was a run for the record books as far as puddles go.

Advice: Always carry a flashlight.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! This is going to be a blog about running (encase you couldn't figure that out already). I have started running for my health and found that it is somewhat enjoyable, however, I am having issues staying motivated. So, I decided that writing a blog about my running experiences might be a good way to keep me motivated and on top of things.

I have been running for about two months now and it is starting to get really cold here. I was going to title this blog "Running on Ice" because I have found that to be the biggest challenge so far, but that title has already been taken by tc at. I have subscribed to her blog at http://runningonice.blogspot.com/. Anyways, I think my next post will be about how I overcame the challenge of running on ice.

I also plan to cover snowplow dodging, dog avoidance, winter running outerwear, flashlights, and anything else I find interesting about running. Please feel free to comment on anything, I welcome the conversation.