Monday, August 6, 2012

Getting motivated for short races; A new adventure


So right now I only have two races on my schedule-the Tower of Terror 10 Miler at the end of September and the Disney Full Marathon in January.  If I was only training for the full, I wouldn’t need to start my “official” training plan until the last week of August.  With the 10-miler on the schedule, my plan started two weeks ago.  Now I will admit, I kinda stink at cross-training days...I always have (even though I KNOW those days will only help me overall).  I don’t mind yoga or upper body weights so much, it’s the lower body (meh) and core (UGH UGH UGH) that I’m not fond of.  But, I do usually stick pretty close to my mileage days, maybe with some flip-flops here and there--meaning flip-flopping miles with cross training days--when needed due to weather or work or life.

What gets me is my thinking about the 10-miler.  “Oh, it’s ONLY a 10-miler, no biggie”.  And so the motivation to actually DO the training is quite a bit lacking.  Well, at least the cross training part.I even look at the mileage days and think “Eh, just 2 miles today...whatever”.  After completing 9 half marathons and one full marathon, 10 miles just doesn’t seem like something to get excited over.  Is that crazy or what?  When I tell a non-runner friend/co-worker that I’m doing a 10-mile race, they can’t fathom going that far--but then again, neither could I when I first started out.

So the question now is, how to motivate for those shorter distances?  And how to motivate for cross-training in general?  I also train solo-both cross-training and mileage.  That makes it all too easy to blow off a day since I don’t have anyone in my face to be accountable to.  I’m not at all concerned about the full marathon portion of the training.  I actually enjoyed that last time (well, at least the mileage part...), though I still ran into the same motivation issue for the cross-training.  What’s a good way to motivate?  I was thinking of using a rewards system...has anyone ever tried that as a motivation tool for their training?

Okay, now on the the new adventure.  If you’ve been reading my blog for a bit, you probably know I am a Disney freak.  It is my favorite place in the USA to vacation, whether just for a quick weekend or something much longer.  I’m always looking to plan my next trip (often because there’s a Disney race going on!).  Because I love Disney so much...and just travel in general...I decided to work on becoming a Disney Vacation Planner.  After weeks (well, almost two months actually) of comparing host travel agencies, then choosing my agency and getting set up, I am now able to plan and book vacations-Disney or pretty much anywhere else you can think of!

I’ve set up my own Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MagicalMomentsVacationsbyCarraSaigh and today launched my very own website, www.enchanteddreamvacations.com.  Let me tell you, putting together a website is HARD work!  My brain was totally fried.  I did have lots of help from my techie DH (thanks honey!) without whom I’d have floundered around for ages.  I did teach myself some new tricks but am glad DH IS a techie because if he wasn’t I probably wouldn’t have attempted the website (or if I did I’d be working on it for months before it would be presentable).

Anyway, please take a look and tell me what you think.  I want to make sure the site is user-friendly and appreciate any and all feedback!  Oh, and if you need a vacation quote......  ;-) just let me know.  I’ll be adding a link of some kind here (or maybe a page, like my training calendar is a page and “My Races” is a page, etc) for anyone who may need vacation planning/booking assistance.

Looking forward to January and this again...







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