Winter Fun

Yet one more reason to love living in New Hampshire is the opportunity for new and interesting ways to cross train in my off season. Yesterday we got over a foot of snow so today after class I set off into the woods with my snowshoes. For those unfamiliar with it, snowshoeing is a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be when I sold on the ads at the end of last winter. The trick for me is to remember that I'm not running and that therefore, there's no hurry. I tend to run quickly, even when I'm not in shape (which makes for some short, painful runs) and this inability to pace myself became evident as I started to fatigue about 4 minutes, or one song on my MP3 player, in. But once I got that relatively under control, cooled my body back down, and took time to look around me, it was amazing, and a pretty good workout, both uphill and down. So between that and shoveling up said foot + of snow yesterday, my body's worked harder than it has in a while.
The best part about the snowshoeing was that it allowed me think pretty clearly, something I haven't been able to do much of in the midst of school, work and applications for PT school. I've been thinking a lot about my motivation lately, a subject I seem to be obsessed with when it comes to training. I ran my first marathon without any motivation issues and since then I've struggled. I have discovered that every time my personal life feels unstable, my response is to pick a new race. Hence my thought of doing my first half ironman tri this summer. It's not that I just do these races, and train, to hide, or make myself feel stronger--I really do enjoy the activities, but I thought it was interesting what initiated the thought process. I seem to have this belief that if I get stronger physically and push myself to my physical limits and beyond, it will cease to matter to me that I'm about to be 30 and still single. It as if I can say that I'm not dating anyone because I'm too busy training, rather than admitting that maybe there's just no one out there for me. But perhaps all is not lost...as the old saying goes, "it" happens when you least expect it, so if I keep my life at this frenetic pace, I'll stop paying attention and just live.