Ice ice baby

How do you motivate yourself to run on those freezing cold mornings?

I've never really followed a training plan. I usually plod along at my own pace, and hope that my nervous energy and crowd enthusiasm help me fun faster during races. It tends to work, my other half hates racing with me. But not this time. My long term goal is to run the Canberra marathon next April, and I know I am not going to manage that without following a plan and training seriously.

There are 9 weeks until the City 2 Surf. My training group started 2 weeks ago, and we meet twice a week (one interval session, and one cross-training session). I know I need to train faster if I want to run faster so yesterday morning I went to my first parkrun. Parkrun are free, timed, 5km runs held every Saturday morning.

So what has that got to do with running when it's cold? The overnight temperature was -5C. When I got up it was -4C. Dan didn't want to get out of the warm bed, but I'd told myself I was going to run and so I convinced him it would be worth it. I dressed in layers; gators, tights, long sleeves, vest, jacket, hat and earwarmers, and drove to the meeting point.

When the run started it was -2C. When the run finished it still was below zero. I've run when it's been this cold before, but I run slower. I find that comfortable pace and try to stay warm. Yesterday, my body was begging me to slow down, trying to get me to walk, but I wanted to push myself, to run faster, to try harder. It was an internal battle that my body was winning. I don't think I have ever had a harder run. I was so grateful that I had dragged  Dan out of bed to run with me. He kept me running when all I wanted to do was stop. He talked me through the hard kilometres and didn't complain when all I could do was grunt in response.

I am so pleased that I finished this run. I know that training will push me and I need to run outside my comfort zone if I want to get faster.