Do you struggle at times to stay motivated to exercise, even if you normally love the activity that gets you off your butt and into action? This is a normal situation for most of us, and this loss of motivation can occur for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we just don’t feel we are getting the results we want. Perhaps it’s because when life gets hectic it’s easy to make more time for ourselves by cutting out things that makes us healthier. Or, maybe, it’s just that we get bored doing what we are doing.
For myself, I have noticed that it is not unusual for me to lose interest in bicycling sometime in late July or early August. Some of my loss of motivation I suspect is due to the heat during dog days of summer, because I usually get my motivation back when the weather cools down in late summer and early fall.
But I also find that sometimes I just get bored riding, in spite of my efforts to find new places to ride or new destinations to explore. No matter how much you enjoy something, too much of it can lead one to get a little jaded.
With that in mine, I spent last winter researching ways to help me stay motivated for the entire riding season. If you’ve ever read a fitness magazine or online fitness article on ways to stay motivated to exercise, you no doubt have seen that the number one recommendation is usually to sign up for an organized event, preferably some kind of race. The theory being that wanting to finish well in a race will keep you highly motivated. I thought “what the hell, give it a try”.
In the spring I signed up for a metric century scheduled in late September. I figured that picking one so far out would allow me to get prepare all spring and summer, and would help keep my motivation going through my expected “slack” period.
And how did this work out for me you might ask? Well, truth be told, it sucked. I started doing the one thing I swore I didn’t want to do on my bicycle. I started “training” and no longer spent time enjoying my self and taking time to stop and smell the roses. Most of my rides last year were along the same route almost every ride. I knew the distances along this route, so I could track how far I was riding and compare it to the distance I was scheduled to ride. Unlike in years past, I didn’t seek out new routes or spend time off the bike exploring the landscape along the way. Nope, it was ride, ride and ride some more. I quickly grew bored.
Unfortunately, my upcoming race did nothing about my late summer swoon. Because I wasn’t enjoying myself as much, my motivation decline was actually worse than it has been in years past when the full heat of summer hit.
I’m not saying that this technique isn’t effective, or trying to discourage others from trying it. All I’m saying is that it isn’t effective for everyone. I know it wasn’t for me.
As a side note, I was unable to do the race anyway. Just a few weeks before the ride, I had two Grade 1 hamstring tears, one in each leg (and a week apart). Grade 1 are the most “minor” tears, but they still hurt like hell. I had huge bruises on the back of my legs for weeks, and my walking gait was very stiff for quite awhile. Riding was even worse.
This year my plan is to just get back to riding the way I like: going where, when and how far I want to, without the burden of training for a race, and stopping to “smell the roses” along the way.
As to my late summer “swoon”, this year I’m going to try something completely different. I’m not going to fight it. Instead, I’m going to try a different activity when the swoon hits all together. There is a local hiking club that doesn’t look too “hard core”. I’m thinking (hoping?) that getting off the bike and into my hiking shoes will be just the tonic for my loss of motivation.
We shall see.
What techniques or ideas do you use to stay motivated throughout the year? How successful are they? What doesn’t work for you?
