Creating one’s motivation

So as I say elsewhere here, I lost most of my weight by running. And I was steadily increasing my distance. My longest distance was a little over 9 miles, I think, and averaging around 20 miles a week. Then I met my wife.

Heh, you know what? I didn’t notice, or care, that I was running less. My preferred time to run is in the morning, but now that time is put to better use holding my wife. Yes, I’m a bit of a romantic; what can I say? But the fact that she is such an amazing and health-conscious cook is why my weight was able to stay steady. So at the time I didn’t miss running.

Currently the only running I do is about 30 minutes before my karate class. And while that’s nice for general cardio, it lacks the ability to get me to that “cleansing place” where all of life falls away: just you and the road. After runs like that I get this sense of clarity that’s amazing. It’s very similar to a Nike commercial I saw just the other day(but I was unable to find it on youtube yet).

Now I’m looking to try and get refocused. And I’ve decided to do that by signing up for a race. It’s not a long race, only 5k(or 3.11 miles for us Imperialists) . I’m not usually competitive, and trying to run with about 500 more people is going to be interesting to say the least. At the same time, the money goes Habitat for Humanity, so that’s motivation right there as well.

In fact, tell you what. For each person who tags The Life Ledger as a Technorati favorite blog, I’ll add 5 dollars as an additional donation. Race day, I’ll write the names on my number or carry them some other way, and then post a picture of it afterward.