Week eight: February 2019
When your several weeks into your new training cycle, where the novelty of the goal has worn off, it starts to feel challenging to do the work, and you feel like motivation has left you.
This is normal. Whilst motivation is often spoken about, it’s important to look beyond it, to maintain the intensity during your training.
Using the analogy of comparing a goal to starting a fire. Motivation is just the spark to ignite the kindling, to start the fire.
Once the fire has started, you don’t need a spark (motivation) to keep it going. You need fuel for it to keep burning.
I see the initial “why” of your goal as the timber for the fire to burn.
Beyond that it takes effort to cut, collect timber. Fuel is needed to keep the fire going. During this time of consistent effort, your why will be challenged. It will change and be replaced with a new series of stronger why’s.
The final element for a fire to burn is oxygen. This is the mix between our subconscious/conscious thoughts and external pressures. It’s something fluid that we can’t always hold onto or quantify. Unless we are paying attention to it. It’s key to be mindful that sometimes it can be like a good friend or our biggest critic.
What story are you telling yourself, does it lift you up or down?
This week in training was tough, I got sick towards the end of last week, so I had to take a day off to get better as a priority. My rule is if it’s something below the neck then it’s not something you can run through.
Being ill, and fatigued several weeks into training, doubts did briefly surface in my mind. But the positive in moments like this is that your why gets tested, broken down, and is remade stronger.
Manchester marathon is approximately nine weeks away, to see my journey on Instagram follow the hashtag.
#2019projectsub3
Marcus Runs 