Having made it through the half marathon and become a dad, and with winter encroaching, my motivation for running training has waned. As a result, finding the time and inclination to leave my cute daughter (who could wake at anytime and want to play with her dad at the weekend) has been really tough. And of course, things have been busy, so everything has waned.

Yesterday I took a first step at tackling this distressing lack of motivation – after all I still take a massive amount of satisfaction from running and want to get back on the roads.

This vital step was, of course, shopping. Now equipped with running rain jacket/windbreak, running tights, running headlight, reflector strips and long sleeve running t-shirt, I am ready for the colder season of running.

I can’t do much about wanting to be around to play with Emily at the drop of a hat but have certainly diminished my concerns about running in the cold with those purchases!

Another thing that’s going to help is running pre-planned routes. My previous two post-Dadhood runs were on untried routes and necessitated a lot of on-the-go routefinding which is a demotivating factor for me as it messes with my training splits. I’ve a lovely 11 mile run that I sometimes do that I will just do sections of until I can motivate myself to plot another nice road running route.

With Christmas fast encroaching I really can’t let myself degenerate into moderate fatness as I did last year. The diet tracker is coming back out and I’m going to pick my next race and set my next target so I have something to work towards. Maybe the 50 minute 10k should be my next objective?? Thoughts on a comment…

GMT hugs to all of y’all….

Postscript: it is working already, of course. Did a v speedy 5k yesterday to break in the running jacket and see how the fitness had held up. Jacket great. Fitness so-so!