Great Things Happen When...

Great Things Happen When...

... You have the right motivation. For the last 15 years or so I've been somebody who can't run; it's just too painful physically. Down the gym for my cardio I use the crosstrainer as that provides an excellent workout. But its always annoyed me that I can't run because it's something I was good at as a teenager - long distance running was my thing.

So six months into my training routine I decided that 2007 would be the year to start. I'd been experimenting with the treadmill a little on and off trying to find a comfortable pace and so on. Ideally I want to do a 20 minute workout and there's no way I can run for 20 minutes so the only way I can do this is to alternate between jogging and walking so thats what I did - two minutes of each.

I figured I'd do the 2/2 combination for as long as I could gradually working up to the full 20 minutes which would give me a total of 10 minutes jogging time. Well I underestimated my own ability and did the full 20 minute workout on my first go! So I've been doing that a couple of days a week for the last 3 or 4 weeks and its been working out fine.

Today I was having a bit of a bad day at work and my boss annoyed me a little so I decided that I was going to have a great workout to make me feel better. So, today I'd step it up a gear and jog for three minutes and walk for 2. It was really hard but I made it!

So there I was on the treadmill feeling all proud of myself doing my warmdown. I gradually decrease the speed for a couple of minutes so that I dont immediately fall over when I step off the machine! Then suddenly, one of my favourite songs came on. Whenever I hear good music it motivates me to work harder and something inside me told me I just had to run to it! So I slammed up the speed again and off I went. I lasted the entire duration of the song which was almost 4 minutes long! Just half an hour earlier I wasn't sure if I could run for 3 minutes!

But my story doesn't end there... I slowed down the treadmill again and started another cooldown and then the CD skipped and went back to my favourite song! So up the speed went again! It was getting quite funny now (if somewhat painful!) Luckily for me it had only skipped back a minute or so and I only had to run for 40 seconds and when the CD skipped for the second time they changed the CD :-)

So it just goes to show that you can always do more. Even when you think you're done, there's not a drop left in you - there is. You just need to find the motivation that will drag it out.