Winter Motivation

It's hard to motivate yourself to keep jogging through the winter, well, at least it is for me.  Today it was -2C (28F) and 2 weeks ago it was -3C (26F).  Do you know how hard it is for a Florida native to grasp jogging in these temps?!

Some days I have to watch out for ice, today there was frost everywhere, and even a small snow flurry.  It's hard on your breathing, especially for someone with mild asthma like myself.  It takes you twice as long to warm up before you even get going.  You have to buy special clothes, and wear a hat & gloves, there is so much more to think about.  What happen to my fun, motivated, short (30-35 min) jog twice a week to keep fit?

Besides the weather we have been sick off and on for about a month now.  All of this is causing my pace times to go down, down, down.  This is really frustrating, because every time I get out there I want to see improvement.  There has been no improvement since winter hit back in December.

Usually after a month I switch up my playlist and jog/walk times.  Mostly because they have become too easy and I need to step it up.  I haven't adjusted my playlist in a while because I am struggling from beginning to end of the jog.  Finally I realized I just needed to do it, good or bad weather I needed to make it more challenging in order to get over this slump.  So in the weekend I adjusted my playlist, rearranged some songs, added a few, and of course lessened the walking time & increased the amount of time I would jog.  I was a little nervous this morning before starting out.

See, I am taking jogging slowly, especially after injuring myself in the beginning (besides the asthma it is why I still rotate between walking & jogging).  So for me jogging just 30 seconds longer is an accomplishment.  In total I added 1 1/2 minutes to my jogging time with this new playlist.  Today was the first day I was going to jog 5 minutes straight without walking to catch my breath. 

And I did it!  Fog, frost, cold, & nerves, I still did it!!!  And oddly enough, I felt motivated and it wasn't as bad as I expected.  I am really glad I decided to push myself.  Maybe my body will not say that tomorrow, but who cares, I did it!

Any of you had any minor accomplishments lately?

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste! Salut!

:) Danica