As I look over my log of exercise this month, it’s not perfect, but I’ve definitely worked harder than in months past.  The last time I found myself getting out and exercising this often was when a friend signed me up for a 30 mile mountain bike race last fall.  I had 3 weeks to train for the race.  I rode my bikes a lot in those 3 weeks!  The last time I actually ran as much as I have this past month was when I did the Marine Core Marathon in 2003.  My wife likes to tell me that I didn’t really train for a marathon, but I definitely did run more than normal (normal being not at all) in the months leading up to the race.

All of this is interesting to me, because as I look back I can see what has motivated me to exercise.  Motivation is interesting.  I have clearly been motived to exercise by simply stating my plans to on my blog.  I put it out in a public space, and have found that enough to keep me motivated to get out and exercise.  In all reality, I have found blogging to be an incredible motivation tool for a variety of things.  Each behavior I’ve embraced or refrained from so far this year has been helped along by just writing about it on the blog.

For exercise, I can also see that being signed up for a race has been pretty motivating for me as well.  This is true for a lot of people.  I thought it would be true for my wife, so I encouraged her to sign up for a race.  She told me that being signed up for a race would actually be a negative motivation for her!  I guess we are not all motivated by the same things.

So what motivates you?  It might not be writing in a blog or signing up for a race, but if you sit down and think about it for awhile, I bet you can come up with a few things that tend to really motivate you.  I’d like to hear what it is for you that keeps you working towards your goals.