What Supports Your Running

This week I have been doing a lot of solo running.  Not a big change for me during the week, but usually on the weekend hubby and I do run as a couple.  He is injured and since he is a streaker it is a week confined to 1 mile treadmill runs for him.  I have been out kicking off half marathon training on my own.  Lately some of my blogger friends and companies I follow on Facebook are talking about things that get them running.  I think of these things as support.  You know what picks you up, what keeps you going?

I look at hubby swollen, bruised, and sprained foot and see him get on the treadmill and pound out his mile.  He seems determined to keep up his streak of attending our track club's Grand Prix series by running the Singleton 5 miler this weekend.  I see what supports that drive are his streaks, and mad determination (he is way tougher than me).  The streaks, all of that investment is what supports the idea that he can tough it out and ride it out. 

Someone else was talking about music.  It gets them going and pushes them through.  Usually the thing that supports is really what stands in the gap at that one moment.  The moment can be "I don't want to lace up and do this."  Happening right at the start. The moment can be somewhere in the middle of that long run where you say "yeah, I can't do this one more minute, let alone 5 more miles."  The moment can be in that first mile, before you find that rhythm when you think "seriously, what are you doing?  We have ice cream at home and a Top Chef Marathon on the DVR."  The thing about the moments, different as those are, is they pass.  The support, the thing we use, be it music, a streak or a running partner, they are the thing that helps us over the mental gap.  I guess for me it is likely music, especially if I am thinking about just not wanting to start.  Sometimes it is hubby, my favorite running partner.  When I just want to bag the long run it is probably stubbornness riding shot gun.  I don't want to come up short.  I like to finish what I start.  I just think, "I have done it before I can do it again." Surprisingly, as much as I wanted to quit.  As bad as I thought I felt, in a few minutes I am over the gap.

Everyone needs support.  What's yours?