As I mentioned on Monday, I’ve been running again. I’ve been sticking to it quite well. There’s a few factors that seem to have helped me this time around.
First is the support of friends. I’ve made a few friends who want to join me in races and training and for that I am very grateful. Your encouragement has been so valuable to me.
Second is my high energy fool of a dog. Cooper needs the exercise and can be quite “vocal” about his need for speed.
Third is the tracking I’ve been doing. There are several internet resources I have found that have helped me keep track of my training and keep me motivated to keep going further and faster. Here’s a few of the sites I’ve been using lately.
- SparkPeople – This is pretty much a diet and exercise community. It has food, weight and exercise tracking programs as well as wonderful support communities, diet and exercise plans and plenty of hints and tips.
- RunningAhead – I find this to be a very powerful program. You can modify it to include pretty much any sport in any category you would like. So you could ad a horseback riding category and have sub-categories for Cross-Country, Jumping and Dressage. It’s a little hard to start off with, but I love it now that I know how to use it. The reports section is great.
- Active.com – I think an important part of staying motivated is having fitness goals. This is why I keep signing up for small races. I mostly use Active to find races to look forward to, but they have lots of training tips and articles too.
- CoolRunning.com – Another site with excellent race info. They are the originators of the Couch-To-5K running plan. An excellent training plan if you’ve never run before.
Canadian in Candia 