I think I've found my motivation again!!!

A quite large number of local friends, have commented over the last month, how this heat has just about zapped all their motivation and interest in getting runs in. I shared that sentiment whole-heartedly, as I found it almost impossible to get out of bed and go run every morning I was home. I was tired from travel, so that was my pathetic excuse, but really, the biggest pathetic excuse was that i was getting tired of running in hot, very humid, weather. Or as I like to call it, brain-boiling conditions. Some love and thrive in this, I just break down feeling like my brain is boiling and want to crawl into an ice-cooler.

One of the more interesting comments I read was this one by my friend Lisa:

"when I studied to be a social worker one of the disorders we learned about was seasonal effects. Oversimplified, certain seasons can cause depression in individuals. In my mind it I used to relate it to changing to specific seasons. As we have not seen rain in months and temperatures have been outrageous here I am beginning to relate to the disorder, possibly personally, to unchanging monotonous hell causing anxiety and depression."

Clearly she's had enough, and she shed some light to what I've clearly been feeling for over a month.

So I lost my motivation, no point in even posting my log update, because it's terrible. 3 runs in the span of 17 days, etc. Some due to travel, but there was no excuse to skipping Fri-Sat-Sunday runs. (...but I did get almost 5 hours and 24 miles in last weekend on the trails)

I thought I was out of the San Antonio Marathon pacing club, as last year when i was invited, the whole thing was secured by April. I know this, because the Pace team organizer called me the afternoon of the Boston Marathon. This year, I hadn't heard a thing. I could have easily emailed him, but just didn't, so it was certainly a nice surprise to get an email mid-last week asking me to sign up. The guy has it set up as first come first served on the time you want to pace, so luckily I managed to register off the web browser on my iPhone. Last year's pacing buddy Ken recently moved to Colorado, so I was unsure if he was planning on coming in for it. I certainly prefer a friend to pace with me, so I anxiously awaited his reply to my text, so i could lock in a new buddy to the other slot with me. Eventually he replied, saying he's out, so the search for a pacer began. First choice was unavailable. Next up I decided to reach out to several as time was ticking. Long story short, I found a fun friend to pace with, and he appears to be locked in with me.

So with that said, now I have 5, 10, 20 heck, maybe 50 Boston marathon hopefuls needing to get in under 3 hours and 40 minutes that will rely on me to assist them in getting there. Seeing as this is the time needed for all women ages 18 to 34, this will be highly enjoyable for both Panther and I. Ha ha!

Anyway, Zion has been tough to train for. Just can't get past 5 hours of trail running without brain boiling. However, this new goal has put new life in me. While 8:23min/mile pace needed in San Antone is certainly not a daunting task, I want to be more than ready, and have to be. Exactly the shot in the arm that I needed.

So, this weekend, the road running began. I have thrown weather out of the equation, and went 9 miles on Friday, 14 miles on Saturday, and 20 miles this morning (Sunday). It went surprisingly well, even though my brain boiled by mile 17 today and my quads were pretty sore all run long today.

I will throw in longer trail runs into the mix, but I am shifting back to what I always did as I trained for marathons (that brought me success to trail running too) - more roads.

Sorry for the long boring post that didn't amount to much, so here's a sign of hope to end it on an exciting note: A local weatherman wrote this on Friday:

"An end in sight?!? Perhaps!! Long-range forecast models are showing that the massive area of high pressure that's been stuck over Texas for months, may finally begin to weaken over the Labor Day weekend! That could lead to a better chance of some rain, and temperatures actually BELOW 100° for a change! But, in the meantime, be ready for the hottest weekend of the year with highs near 110° both Saturday and Sunday in Austin."