Staying Motivated Through Quarantine

Like many people, my spring has changed dramatically. I’m lucky in a lot of ways: I’ve been working remotely for a long time (along with my husband) and I also am not at high risk for the virus. One thing that has changed is that the spring races that I’ve been training for are no longer happening. This is a good thing and necessary for the safety of everyone. However, let’s talk about how to keep going and keep motivated despite all these changes:

On a recommendation from a friend, I listened to an episode on performance psychology from the cycling podcast, Fast Talk. If you are an athlete of any kind, I definitely recommend this episode, especially if you are an endurance athlete. One of the things that they mention is learning to love the training process, not just the races. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. I love running, but sometimes it’s hard for me to love the process of training, especially for a marathon. I decided to not do the virtual option of my spring marathon and just start training for a fall one now, nice and slowly. I think this will help me spend my spring enjoying the runs, not training hard for a marathon that’s not going to happen.

I’m trying to also use this as an experience in mental toughness. Can I keep training and pushing myself with no outside motivation? No race, no coach, no track (no track 😭). So far, I’m doing ok. But I’m not doing great! I’m currently trying to get motivation from friends. For example, one of my friends is doing the One Punch Man Workout (minus the run) every day. When I heard that, I decided I wanted to join her. Granted, I think I’m going to have to cut down the push-ups for the first few days, but I’ll get there.

I hope everyone is coping well. Just because you can’t run and workout with your friends doesn’t mean you can’t lean on them a bit to help you.