Happy Marathon Weekend Chicago!!! Best of luck to all my friends running this weekend & to the 40,000+ people making their attempt at the marathon! You don’t know how proud your friends & family are of you, and how many people you inspire by taking on this goal. Marathon weekend is a perfect time for anyone (runner or not) to take a look at themselves & do a little inventory on their own personal goals.
Committing to a marathon training program is actually a bigger goal than doing the race itself. When you commit to do a marathon, you are committing your mind, body & spirit to 18 weeks of focused workouts, hours spent stretching and caring for a body that you are really putting through the paces, & sacrificing things like sleep & relaxation time to ensure you are running enough miles to be ready for the big day.
Take a look at your own goals & determine if you’ve made a “marathon commitment” to them, or if you are actually sitting on the proverbial fence with those goals. You cannot expect to run a marathon & slack off in your training. If you do, you will end up in the medical tent on race day – if you even make it to race day. You have to follow the proper steps to ensure success & accomplishment of that goal of running 26.2 miles. How does your personal goal commitment compare to the commitment that marathoners make to their goal?
Have you picked a clear end goal? It could be a certain weight, a certain ability-like doing 20 perfect pushups, a bodyfat goal, a clothing size goal, a goal of making fitness part of your regular lifestyle by achieving 5-6 days/week of exercise from here through the foreseeable future.
Have you determined what the training plan should be for that goal? People don’t accidentally get fit, just like they don’t accidentally run 26.2 miles. You have to have a plan for any goal to be accomplished – what are you going to do, how are you going to progress it, when are you going to be progressing by, what are you going to eat, how often are you going to stretch, what are you going to change to ensure you have time to train for and reach your goal? If you don’t know how to do this, you’ve got fitness pros like myself ready to answer personal questions & help you set up a training program, and there are hundreds of books out there, just make sure if you choose a book, that you’re picking one that is right for your goals & that was written by someone with half a brain for fitness.
Have you focused your mindset on your goal? There’s not a workout that goes by for a marathoner that they are not thinking about the end goal of running the race & completing it. When you’re working out, do focus your mindset during the workout on what you want the end result to be? Or do you think over and over in your head, “this is so hard,” “I don’t want to be doing this anymore,” “I hate this”? Remember that your mindset is one of the most powerful tools you have in your quest to accomplish a goal. Make it work for you by focusing your mindset to the end goal & the appreciation of the training you’re doing to accomplish that goal.
Good luck to everyone who has a fitness goal – it may not be to run a marathon – but it’s a noble goal if it’s one you can get behind 100% and commit to!
Special good wishes to: TINA!! LONGRY!! GLEN ELLYN RUNNERS!!
No comments:
Post a Comment