Valentine's Card to My Motivation

That video where the guy eats squirty cream whilst road riding...

Warning: this blog is going to be immensely food positive and will make you want to get on the snacks. I would advise you to get on the snacks. Or reduced Valentine's chocolates tomorrow...

A conversation with one of my oldest friends began:

hannah how do i motivate myself to go for a (short) run when it's cold outside. i don't have the goal of rio to get me exercising SO WHAT DO I DO

Hann

She knew that she could ask me because she was there in school, when all I did was eat crisps and go on MSN. Then she was there when all I did was eat crisps and RaceRun my heart out. She was also there when I started to cycle and RaceRun and carry on with my full-time degree (I stopped eating crisps and got a bit too skinny...so I went back on the crisps and added pizza) and then she was there when I specialised in trike racing and got selected for Rio and graduated (all thanks to pizza).

*I have realised successful athletes usually hide the amount crisps they eat. Trust me, Paralympians/Olympians eat crisps too. Or have a cheeky wee MaccyD's before a race.  Depending on distance and discipline and intestinal enzyme content, one fact remains constant: calories are fuel. Very high calorie food is rocket fuel. Just don't use rocket fuel when you are actually a Ford Ka, sitting in the gridlock, on your 3 mile commute to work, ya numpty.*

I exercise a lot nowadays but only because I am the expert at coercing my inner slug. What I mean by this, my set point- when it gets wet and cold, is just to find a comfy space on the tarmac and sit there, sluggily, occasionally to be stepped on by a fast moving pedestrian. I don't like to move at first, especially if the weather is bad.

I don't mean these slugs:

I mean this kind: 

There is a way to counteract the slug within you. Slugs don't turn into butterflies though. This isn't everyone's fav transformation story. I mean I have got a lot more hench than I was and my old friends from school were so surprised they kept asking to touch my arms for a while, to make sure I really had muscles. But I haven't transformed, I've just been allowed to become who I was.

Slugs stay the same and are that metaphorical gastropod that they always were. They just learn how to get a wiggle on and leave a beautiful (if slimy) silver trail to follow.

 I got so good at it I would actually enjoy the creds I got from going out in the worst weather possible. I wanted to be that girl in the storm.

Here's what I do when I'm having a stubborn brain and body day (the Facebook chat which followed...made more coherent).

Begin your workout indoors in the warm; put on that music that makes you dance a little bit. If I want to be really mean, I don't allow myself to listen to music unless I'm doing a work out. Just get yourself moving enough so you don't feel tight with cold?

Hannah

Then I put my kit on. Or I put my kit very close by me- critically must be easier to access than my pyjamas.

I eat something highly calorific...you feel guilty and then you remember you turn into a shooting star who happens to be riding a trike when you eat right before a ride.

Now make the session you are about to do, the cure for: A) feeling sad B) feeling grumpy C) feeling fat D) feeling trapped E) feeling like your surroundings are ugly F) feeling weak G) feeling hopeless H) feeling hungover I) feeling tired. I experience at least one of these feelings every day so therefore I must exercise every day.

If you live in the traffic-heavy city centre, lucky you. Ignore the cars and focus on the lights. The lights are so beautiful. Espesh at Xmas. I love street lamps too . So if you've put it off all day, it's actually better at night. Or if it's not Xmas head out right before sunset and go 'colour catching'.

Hannah

And that's all the ones I can think of right now. Essentially running is like chasing the dragon. That feeling that exercise releases is like no other and the nights are prettier than the grey grey days during the festive season xxx have a good one x

And then there's the weird little things that get me loving life when I'm riding....

The little birds that dive out of the hedges and fly beside you, playing in your slipstream just like dolphins of the air...(never actually taken a picture but it happened a lot on this ride..especially near Strathaven?)

then there are the surprise rainbows (photo-Dundee... when it was raining...)

Being perfectly warm when everything is freezing outside because you've just sprinted up a hill. The satisfaction is fleeting and then you freeze your ass off but you think everything is beautiful because you're not sprinting up that hill any more...so it doesn't matter (a resting place, Helensborough, in January) 

The neon phase of streetlights when they are between pink and amber...

Then ALL the ones that I don't have photos for you because mostly I ignore my phone on rides (you've got to be pretty focused to ride a trike...especially with a movement disorder)

-Being the only one on a big main road...would love a zombie apocalypse... think of all the training opportunities

-Chasing buses and winning

-Finding freshly laid Tarmac...that's dried...have made that mistake before

-Being out after a hailstorm and out comes the sunshine but everyone but you is indoors...

-Having a roaring headwind scream in your face and in your ears but you scream right back and say you will not knock me over this time. I get knocked over by wind gusts quite a lot because I hunt down the fiercest...

Then, there are these guys:

I don't often get to ride with other road Paracyclists and if I'm riding with guys with fully functional legs they'll have to slow down, a lot and it's not the same. Here's a pic of a happy ride taken by our coach with very long arms and who is also very good at road bike manoeuvers:

Training with friends is important. I 'coach' some RaceRunners now, which really means just running round beside them trying to make them go faster. I do this for free because it's great cross-training, with great young people. Cos friends make you go faster whilst also having a laugh. It helps if one of them has this very impressive superman pose and can dance like Shakira (shake those hips...). This photo is very old..they're a lot bigger now. The RaceRunners at Red Star literally light up my Monday and Thursday evenings. Ending with you, ya cuties.