A body in motion: Why signing up for a race may be the motivation to exercise you need
My motivation to exercise has grown stronger as the results have started to improve. Like trying to get a bicycle working, you need to push hard off the ground to get vague wobbly movement, then you need to push hard to keep the momentum going. And if you don't then the bike quickly stops again, and if you don't put your foot down, you are going to fall off.
Exercise is like that for most people, they push hard to get going, but because it's hard they soon revert back to where they were, whereas if they knew just how easy the next bit is....they would pedal just that little bit longer. You see the laws of motion come into play - a body in motion stays in motion, a body at rest....well you get the idea. As the wheels begin to move, it takes less effort to keep the pedals turning, and soon you can begin to cruise. Which is OK for a while, but sooner or later, you are going to have to change the route or the speed at which you are travelling otherwise you are not going to see any changes to your health, shape or anything else. We come to a point where we maintain our shape, weight and then boredom can set in....
But if you are willing to push just that little bit harder every now and again, the benefits and the results can be quite dramatic. Which is where the motivation to exercise comes in. And this is exactly the same for anything that you say you want to do, be or achieve...it's not just about exercise.
Unless you enjoy the journey and can get excited about the changes to your body then you are not going to exercise. If you don't enjoy the day to day steps that you need to take in order to move your writing forward by a page at a time, then you are not going to finish the book you are writing.
You will remain on cruise control, or you'll stop pedalling and then 6 months down the track having lost all the muscle tone that you had gained, gained a few pounds, you no longer feel capable of running up the stairs, your typed pages have curled and lie yellowing on the window sill. My motivation to exercise has grown stronger as the results have started to improve.
My goal of completing the City to Surf race has kicked in again. It’s one of those bucket list items that just keeps cropping up. I know I walked it one year and I trained hard to ensure I could make the 12k’s in a reasonable time. But I’ve always wanted to run it. We’re now in June and I’ve probably left it a bit late to start training. But I do need a reason to train – do you?