I could blame it on my focus on getting my personal training and boot camp business up and running.
I could blame it on my studies for a nutrition certification.
I could blame it on the weird pain I’ve been suffering through in my left foot.
I’m sure if I really thought about it, I could find a lot of reasons.
But if I’m going to be honest with myself (and with you), I have to simply admit, I haven’t been motivated.
I have a half-marathon next weekend, a full marathon and a 100-miler in October.
Bay State (the marathon) was supposed to be my attempt to return to Boston. Ghost Train (the 100-miler) was supposed to be my attempt to go sub-24 hours.
After watching my social media feed back in April, as many of you ran a glorious Boston Marathon, I got excited. I got psyched. I was pumped at the prospect of running a competitive (for me) marathon and getting myself back to the starting line in Hopkinton. With the added 10 minutes allotted to me because of my impending age bracket change, I knew I had it in the bag.
I bought new shoes (Go Mebs).
I announced my plans.
I pulled out my calendar and worked my way back from October to determine my base building runs and then my Bay State specific runs.
I planned it out.
My early morning runs.
My late night runs.
I was going back to Boston…
.
.
.
…and then I wasn’t.
My calendar began to fill. Early morning runs became a problem. With 6AM clients, 4 to 5 days a week, I was already getting up at 4:30AM to prepare. Late night runs became a problem for the same reason. You can’t give your clients your best on only 4 hours of sleep. I was studying at night. My feet were (are) suffering from an undetermined ailment. The list could go on and on.
Honestly though, those are just excuses. The fact is, as excited as I initially was to run both Bay State and Ghost Train, that motivation abandoned me at the first hurdle I faced. Perhaps I really didn’t want to run, I merely wished I could. We make priorities in life in part because there are only 24 hours in a day. We make choices. Maybe it a day was 30 hours, I would have found the time…maybe…probably, the results would have been the same.
At this point, if it isn’t obvious, I will not be running Bay State in an attempt to qualify for Boston. I may still run it, depending on my feet, but it will be simply to enjoy a long run through the town of Lowell, MA. Ghost Train is out of the question. Attempting to run 100 miles on zero training would be foolish. As for Boston 13.1, which happens next weekend, I am not sure. Like Bay State, we’ll see how the feet hold up over the next week.
