motivation

My motivation for running always varies, but I find that when I am not training for anything in particular, my motivation bottoms out. Training for my next set of marathons does not begin until June, and on April 25th I ran my 2nd of 2 marathons of 2 months. I have only run 4 times since then, and I'm finding it hard to get motivated. For the first two weeks after the April marathon, I purposely didn't run. I felt that my body needed a rest. In addition, I wanted to enjoy some free time! No more squeezing in a run before a night out with friends, or lugging my running clothes around every day, or having to take 2 or 3 showers in a day due to running. It was a nice break!

But I figured I should keep my muscles active and start running again a few times a week, perhaps just 3 miles at a time. This might sound easy to a marathon runner, but for me right now it's not. It's not that I dread running. It's that I just feel tired and unenergized. So far I have run each of the days I committed myself to, so I guess I am not totally defeated. But it has taken me a lot to get myself out there. I guess I shouldn't worry about it. In June I won't really have a choice (okay, yes, I have a choice. But if I want to do 2 marathons in 1 month in the fall I really need to do the training!). Maybe I should just take the month of May for what it is: a time to enjoy life (both with and WITHOUT running) and just do the best I can!