It’s Wednesday, so it’s time to link up with Debbie for her Wednesday Word weekly link up!

Click the button above to see who else is linking up this week and to join in. This week’s word is accountability.

When you’re trying to keep a regular running/workout schedule and especially when you’re training for a race, sometimes pure willpower isn’t enough. You need things that help keep you accountable to yourself. Here are a few things that keep me accountable….

1. A Running Buddy. One of the things that helps the most with accountability is when you have an individual or group to meet up with. Knowing someone is waiting for you will get you out of bed before the sun on a Saturday morning when it’s 40 degrees and raining. It also really helps just to have someone to check in with and talk to about your running.

   

2. A Training Schedule. Making a plan, whether it’s to workout four days a week on M-W-F-Sa or an 18 week training program for a marathon, will keep you accountable. Especially if you are type A like me 😉 When I know what the plan is that week, I can make adjustments in my schedule as needed to make sure everything works out.
   
3. A Running Log. Naturally, if you are following a plan you’ll need somewhere to write it down. It could be tempting to just cross a workout off of your plan and skip it. But it’s harder to do that when you have to go tell your running log. Writing down your workouts is also really useful for tracking trends – what works and what doesn’t, developing injuries, etc.
   
4. This Blog. I have been blogging since January 2013. For most of the first year, I blogged nearly every day. I don’t even know how I did that back then! Now I blog three times a week. But either way, it definitely keeps me accountable. Sometimes social media can be overwhelming, with everything people post on it. But it can keep you accountable, too, if you want to be able to post as well! Specifically, this blog gives me a place to share my thoughts and (sometimes) vent my frustrations. And it gives me a place for support and encouragement, and to interact with others and hear their stories.

What keeps you accountable?

Just like that, it’s the last day of August and summer is almost gone. It always seems to fly by, doesn’t it? Luckily I like the next season, too. This is a great time of year, too, because it’s still summer (aka daylight in the evening) but the temperature is also cooling off and the humidity is dissipating.

I kicked off my weekend with a 6 mile run on Friday afternoon. Then Barry and I took advantage of the cooler weather at the Virginia Tech men’s and women’s soccer games for a date night.

The women won 2-1 over James Madison University. After their game, Barry and I grabbed some food at one of the dining halls on campus. It’s the one I ate at the most during my four years at Tech. They had just wrapped up their first week of classes, and I loved being back on campus in that atmosphere. It makes me miss being in college. After dinner we watched the men’s soccer game. It was really exciting, and went into overtime. Unfortunately, UNCG managed to score with just 4 minutes left in the second ‘sudden victory’ overtime period.

Saturday started out a bit lazy, but I did get over to a local park to run 4 miles in the early afternoon.

After my run, I finally finished cleaning the camper after our trip to the beach. Scout “helped” me clean, and now the camper is ready for our next trip in a couple of weeks!

Sunday Barry and I headed to the next town over to run on a different section of our usual trail. He ran the first 8 miles of my 12 mile long run with me, which was fun. It was a pretty day out on the trail.

I also ran past a spot where I got an awesome picture during a 20 mile run a couple of years ago. It wasn’t quite as pretty yesterday, but it was still a great view.

Once we got home, Barry and I just hung out and enjoyed the rest of the weekend. I was starving, and made a big salad for a late lunch.

It was one of my favorite summer salads: grilled chicken, diced apple, dried cranberries, blue cheese, and poppyseed dressing. Yum!

What did you do this past weekend?
What are your favorite summer foods?

On Monday we celebrated Scout’s third birthday! It feels like just yesterday we were picking her up as a 14 week old puppy. My how the time flies!

One of Scout’s most favorite things in the word is ice cream. That is one of the foods she begs for the most if it’s on the table. Luckily, I discovered puppy ice cream last year. What better way to celebrate her birthday than with one of her favorite things. I think she was happy 🙂 (and don’t worry, Hank got some, too!)

Aside from ice cream, Scout also loves chewing on bones.

But chewing bones can be very tiring….

She loves to use her nose to sniff things out, especially on a long walk or during Search & Rescue training.

But all of that sniffing is very tiring….

Running around in the yard, hanging out with Hank, and helping him guard the house is another favorite pastime.

But guess what? That just wears her out, too…

Getting to travel somewhere is always very exciting and Scout often things she can drive the truck.

But traveling will just wear a dog out….

Even just watching other people workout can wear you out.

Basically, life as a dog is just exhausting….

Luckily she was able to muster enough energy for a solo walk last night, just me and her, to celebrate her third birthday!

Scout loves to be with Hank, and gets very upset if he goes somewhere and she gets left behind. But as much as she loves to be with him, they have very different walking styles. He likes to walk very slowly and sniff everything. Scout enjoys walking at a quicker pace as she ‘speed sniffs’ her way through. Occasionally, she stops to sniff something, but mostly she just likes to power through with her nose to the ground. It was a special treat for her to get to go for a walk by herself.

If you have pets, what are some of their favorite things?

It’s Wednesday so I’m linking up with Debbie again for her Wednesday Word link up! Click the button below to see who else is linking up and to join in.

This week’s word is ambitious. Running is an ambitious thing. In running you are focused on achieving a goal – be it a specific workout or a race. Having ambition means you have a desire to achieve a certain objective.

I have had many ambitions since I started running. I wanted to complete a half marathon, then I wanted to run sub-2 (I came close, at 2:01:00), then I wanted to improve my 5K time, then I focused on full marathons. Honestly, I don’t really know where I’m at with my running right now. I had a great time doing a trail series this past spring and I still really like trails and want to explore them more. At some point I know I am going to tackle the 50K distance and I am pretty sure I know what my first 50K will be….

I have other ambitions with running, too. They are definitely nowhere near my immediate future, but I do hope to accomplish some very scary goals.

Some day I would like to tackle a 50 miler and my greatest (and scariest) ambition is to run a 100 miler!

What are your greatest ambitions?

Before we left for the beach, I kicked off day one of my vacation with an 8 mile long run on one of my favorite local trails. I was in a good mood, it being day one of two weeks off and all, and I was expecting to have a good run. For a late morning in August it was relatively cool outside, and it was even overcast, but it was very humid. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but for whatever reason it was a pretty tough run.

If you’re a distance runner, or really if you workout at all, you know there are days where things just don’t feel great. For reasons unknown, your legs feel like lead, you feel tired and lethargic, and your head is just not in the game. There’s a big mental side involved with distance running, and when your head is not in the game that can make things really tough.

So my 8 mile run was one of those where you just get through it and move on. But to get through it, it took a lot of arguing with myself. Especially for the final two miles. Honestly, all I wanted to do was stop and walk. Half of my brain was saying go ahead and just walk. It’s just one run, it’s okay. While the other half was saying come on you can push a bit more. People have struggled through much more than this, keep going. My pace slowed by nearly a minute, but luckily the side of my brain that wanted to push through won. All it took was a little perseverance. And you know what? It may not have been the best run, but it felt good to finish that run and know that I didn’t give in.

When do you argue with yourself? How do you win the fight?