BEDM Day 9 - Motivation

I should be brimming over with motivation for my running at the moment. I have entered the Run for All Hull 10km which is taking place in just under a month and the closer I get, the motivated I should be - right?

Not really.

I've tried everything I can think of - I've written myself out a not particularly demanding training plan, I've tried to remember everything I wrote in my Guide to Mediocre Running, I've promised to go easy on myself - but nothing seems to be working.

My injuries haven't helped matters either and neither quite frankly has my weight, it is not lost on me that I'm trying to run this 10km weighing a fair bit more than any of my others.

I go through fairly regular periods of falling in and out of love with running. It takes me a while to get back to enjoying it and not minding the sweat and lung burning and tired legs that come as part and parcel of lugging myself around my chosen route. At the moment I'm frustrated with what I'm perceiving as a lack of progress - somehow I seem to be running faster than I used to be able to, but I'm just totally unable to turn that into running for longer periods. If I was training for a 5km I'd probably be happy about now but instead I feel frustrated and annoyed.

I have decided to let myself off the hook for this 10km. I'm not going to be ready in time to be able to run the whole thing, a month just isn't long enough to get to where I need to be, instead I'm going to work on not mentally beating myself black and blue if I have to walk. (No mean feat let me tell you.)

But I need a little extra motivation to get myself to still go out there and run.

So I turned to retail therapy - not often my first choice.

How can I not want to go out running now when I have the opportunity to wear these guys...

...and these guys....

Both are from Adidas and come on the recommendation of Miss Pond - I saw her cool leggings and had to get in on the action.

It may seem weird that someone who feels intensely paranoid whenever they go out and run in public would buy running tights like these but the way I reason it is that if I think everyone is looking at me anyway, I might as well look like a lunatic. Now I can try and convince myself that they're not looking at me because I look peculiar when I run but are actually looking at me because  they are jealous of how super cool I look.

And it almost worked you know - when I got them I really wanted to go out and go for a run straight away.

I didn't....but....you know....I felt motivated to...so that's half the battle surely?