Motivation Monday: 50 in 50

Sorry for the late post. I had the day off from work so I wasn’t on the computer too much.

50 days. 50 marathons. Yes, really. A London man named Hugh Williams-Preece will be running from Libson, Portugal to London, England to raise money for Marie Curie Nurses. In the past, Hugh has participated in other endurance events such as climbing the three highest peaks in England, Scotland and Wales in 24 hours, climbing Mont Blanc and Kilimanjaro, and completing the Marathon des Sables (aka running 6 marathons in 7 days across the Sahara completely supported by yourself).

AKA he’s pretty hardcore already. So now he’s decided to embark on a journey across four countries, running a total of 1310 miles (hey 1,000+++ club, maybe we should hop on this guy’s idea!). The journey is arranged so it all mostly goes downhill, which will be a saving grace on that man’s quads.

I’ll post a few updates along the way about his challenge.

Speaking of updates… Katie Spotz with Row for Water only has 975 miles remaining on her trip across the Atlantic!

Next Time:

I have running updates, a product review and a GIVEAWAY coming up this week! I hope you all enjoyed your day off :) If you were at work, well… I hope it wasn’t too hectic. Later gators.

Motivation Monday: Sentense Me!

At the beginning of every month, I look through the new monthly desktop calendars on Smashing Magazine’s website. I’m very month/season-oriented, so I like to change up my desktop each month with a new image. One on that page really caught my eye, and I decided to use it on my office computer:

Oh-so-perfect for work!

Amazingly enough, it wasn’t until this morning that I looked at the designer’s website. It was really rather appropriate, because I stupidly did not plan my Motivation Monday post over the weekend, so I went into the day not knowing what to write about. This website handed me my topic of the week on a silver platter.

The site is Sentense.me, and every weekday they post a new desktop image with an inspirational/motivational quote. Now I personally love my desktop calendars, and I don’t want to change it every day… but I’ve still added the site to my news reader so every day I get a new motivational (and colorful!) quote. They’d also look pretty snazzy printed and taped into a tile pattern on your wall.

I hope these rainbow blocks of wisdom help give a jump-start to your day!

Double or Nothing

I’m doing double gym days this week. Why? Because I was a solid slacker last week and I have some catching up to do.

I hit a wall in my training on Sunday. As I ran down the street to start my 10 mile long run, I couldn’t do it. I was a quarter mile in and I never felt worse while running. I convinced myself that I’d break through, but by the time a half mile rolled by, I knew not to push it. I’d had a hard time with getting started before, but this was different. This was my body giving me a definite NO. I listened, and went to the gym for an easy go on the spin bike and some weights instead.

“You skipped a long run day? Seriously?”

Yup. You do what you have to do.

I remember the first day of my training, when I didn’t step on the treadmill until 9pm because I had such a busy day. I told myself that slacking was not an option, and I had to stick to my plan. But that’s not realistic. Life happens. Tiredness happens (and I don’t mean “hit snooze for another 10 minutes” tired). If I miss a long run for a good reason, c’est la vie. I just acknowledge it and move forward with the intent to improve.

So that brings me to today. I woke up at the lovely time of 4:45am, put on my sweeeeet new pink running shorts and (stupidly) a long sleeve black top, and hit the gym for some speed work.

• 0.25 mi warm up at 6.0
• 3×800 at 6.8 with 0.25 mi in between at 6.0
• another 800 at 7.0

Tonight I’m heading back for round 2: more strength training. I need to work on my arms and abs for core balance as well as a way to even things out with my Amazon Woman thighs (I say that lovingly). I have another double planned for tomorrow, mostly because my mid-week tempo run is scheduled to be 8 miles, and there’s no way I can reasonably fit that in before or after work (and I’ll go insane if I do a solid 8 on the ‘mill). So it’s being broken up into 4 and 4. That I can handle.

I have some recipes to share with you all, but I’m going to hold off until tomorrow. Until then, here’s a photo of my awesome, colorful getup and my game face before my failed Sunday run:

See you tomorrow with plenty of goodies!

Motivation Monday: Row for Water

Some of you seemed to enjoy that Ryan Hall/Josh Cox video I posted last week, so I’d like to start a regular motivational post; Motivational Mondays! Here we go:

I recently heard about a campaign called Row for Water; a young athlete named Katie Spotz is rowing across the Atlantic Ocean from Senegal to French Guiana to raise awareness and money for Blue Planet Run, a non-profit funding safe drinking water projects for the billion people around the world in need. Oh, and she’s rowing across the ocean alone. In less than 100 days.

She uses special satellite equipment to update her blog (on the main site) and Twitter accounts with daily happenings or interesting things she sees along the way. There’s also a location tracker on the site. She’s 29 days in to her journey and she looks to be over a third of the way to her destination. Go Katie!

Some other career highlights for Katie:

• Swim for Water (another Blue Planet Run cause): Became first person to swim the entire length of 325 mile Allegheny River, averaging 12-15 miles per day, and with a one day swim of 22 miles
• Big Ride Across America (for Clean Air/American Lung Association): Cycled 3,300 miles across the United States from Seattle to D.C., averaging 85 miles a day for forty days
• Desert Run: Ran 150 miles across the Mojave Desert and Colorado Desert, solo and self-supported
• Half Ironman Triathlon: First in age group (1.2 mi swim, 56 mi bike, 13.1 mi run)
• Cycled over 1,000 miles of solo bike tours within the United States, with a longest single day ride of 236 miles
• Oxfam Trail Run: Completed 62-mile ultra marathon in Melbourne, Australia

This lady is rock solid. If you’re able, shoot a few dollars towards Blue Planet Run.

What will motivate you this week?