First off, here a few scenes from my Sunday.
(Dropped the husband off to start his run. It was an amazingly beautiful day!)
(Wonderful evening watching a movie with family and cat snuggles.)
(Snapping pictures my husband had no idea I was taking.)
We spent most of the weekend relaxing and enjoying time together with family. My husband is having some back issues and that along with the exhaustion from 3 interviews in 4 days made it a tough couple of days.
He seems to be more rested now and ready to finish out the last two we have.
Since another Monday is upon is that means it is a new day, a new week, and a new start for us all.
I wanted to add some motivation to your Monday, so I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite motivational running quotes.
1. “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” – Steve Prefontaine
My husband has this one framed on the wall of our study/workout room.
2. “Don’t be afraid to give up the good for the great.” – Steve Prefontaine
3. “Man imposes his own limitations, don’t set any.” – Anthony Bailey
4. “The greatest pleasure in life, is doing things people say we cannot do.” – Walter Bagehot
5. “All it takes it all you’ve got.” – Marc Davis
6. “You have a choice. You can throw in the towel or you can use it to wipe the sweat off your face.” – Gatorade
7. “Having a true faith is the most difficult thing in the world. Many will try to take it from you.” – Steve Prefotaine
8. “Success isn’t how far you got, but the distance you traveled to get there.” – Steve Prefotaine
9. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
10. “A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more. Nobody is going to win a 5,000 meter race after running an easy 2 miles. Not with me. If I loose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself.” – Steven Prefotaine
As you can see I love many quotes by Steve Prefontaine.
The past couple weeks have been full of a lot of negative self talk and self doubt. This pretty much applies to many areas in my life, not just in my running.
I’ve been mentally defeating myself almost daily which makes for a very hard time and makes it hard to enjoy the moments I have.
We all are our own worst enemies, we all are harder on ourselves than almost anyone else, and WE are the ones who have the ability to change that.
I set 4 simple goals for myself this week:
1. Stay focused. Don’t get so lost in how far I have to go that I am missing the moments in front of me.
2. Live in the moment. I need to slow down and live in the moment. Stop being so focused on what is to come that I let valuable moments of life pass me by.
3. No more negative self talk. Stop putting myself down or beating myself up. Be positive and focused on the future.
4. Stop looking back. At this point it does me no good to keep looking back. Instead I need to focus on where I am going and what I can be.
What are your favorite motivational quotes? I love finding new ones!
What are 4 simple goals you have set for yourself this week?
Negative self talk is a BIG one for me. I definitely need to work on that, so there is one goal for this week 🙂
I agree Casey! It has always been one of my biggest struggles! Glad to hear I am not the only one! Hope you have a great Monday!
I know I have said this before, but …
– You are being there for Wes. I still remember flying around the country interviewing as the economy was crashing in ’07/’08 while my thyroid was dying … and I had my wife by my side supporting and encouraging me every step. DO NOT underestimate the value of your contribution.
– Celebrate what you have learned – it is so easy to go down the ‘if I hadn’t …’ path, but what you need to do is realize that you have learned that you need to recover, learned to listen to your body, and so on.
Two examples:
– a guy in our regional Facebook running group just got into distance running, and this past weekend did a 5k, then an extra 5 miles, then was heading to the gym, and then planned another 5 miles.
This was 2 weeks after 10 miles in a day was his longest ever and a week after running his first half marathon (first race >10k). Ask yourself … WHERE do you think he is headed? If you answered to rapidly injuring himself, you join about 25 others in our group telling him to ‘slow down’.
But it seems clear he thinks it won’t happen to him. My point – this sort of thing has to come from within, and sometimes what we ‘know’ gets pushed down below the surface because we are too impatient to wait.
– My older son had a friend over to hang out this weekend, and we were talking while waiting for her dad to pick her up. She was on the varsity softball team as a freshman, one of the best players and very promising. But she hurt her ankle, and didn’t give proper time to heal … so hurt it again, and again … and as a result she is pretty much never going to be able to play any ‘lateral motion’ sport (softball, basketball, etc) again in a competitive setting. And she is just a junior in high school …
I have said before I think your layoff was an ‘opportunity’ in many ways, because you wouldn’t be with Wes now otherwise. But that extra time allowed you to push too hard with your training, and I think you have had to step back and learn some lessons from that as well.
I really hope you enjoy the rest of the trip, take a deep breath, step back and remember what matters – and also that life is a marathon, not a sprint. I mean, I am 47 and really just starting to think about what I need to do to get to a BQ myself … and I don’t care if it is next year or the year after … 🙂
This is so true! Thank you for the reminder! I know this time is stressful but it would even worse if I wasn’t able to be here with him!
We are enjoying it and look forward to a few days once all the interviews are over and we can both breath!
I know I have a long time to train and BQ! If it is May GREAT! If not, well I can deal with that too! I know I will get there on of these days and it is most important that I come back strong and healthy and take my time!
We just watched a Steve Prefontaine move recently…actually hubby bought it for tons of viewing …over and over motivation!!
Which one was it? We’ve watched a few! He is so motivational!!
One of my goals was to get to the pool and I finally ordered a new bathing suit that will be here any day now. Guess who’s headed to the pool on Thursday? Thanks for getting me excited about swimming. 🙂 The negative self talk is a big one with me too, I started calling her the Voice and she can be downright mean. When she starts talking I go through some of the quotes I have collected, here’s a few of my favorites:
“The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” – John Bingham, No Need for Speed: A Beginner’s Guide to the Joy of Running
“You don’t find yourself by running … you create yourself.” John Stanton
“Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.”- Dean Karnazes
Love those quotes!!
Awesome job getting into the pool! I hope you enjoy it! One small reason I actually look forward to going back is that I can get back in the pool again – I miss it when traveling!
I love all of Pre’s quotes, he has a lot of great ones! I’ve never heard that one you listed by Martin Luther King Jr. but I just wrote it down on a sticky note to remember later because it is so amazing!
One of my favorite running quotes is “The gun goes off and everything changes… the world changes… and nothing else really matters.” – Patti Sue Plummer
Love that quote!! I love Pre’s quotes too! They are always inspirational and I like to look at them sometimes before a long run!
Some amazing quotes there I am definitely going to be adding some of them to my quote book 🙂
Good luck with your goals for the week I am sure you are going to smash them 🙂
x
Thank you!!! I love that you have a quote book 🙂
I love his quotes also! So motivating…
Like your first goal, this week I am just focusing on staying committed to my training plan. I’m doing a Hal Higdon marathon training plan and it seems like way too much if I look long term; I really need to just focus on the miles laid out for me for this week.
I have done Hal higdon and yes it does seem like a lot at first but it does get easier and you get better! Good luck with your plan!!
Oh no! Just catching up on posts and I’m sorry you were dealing with negative self talk. I hate that. I think you’re amazing, and if there’s anything I can do to convince you of that, please let me know!!!