Words Can't Say It, I Can't Do Enough To Prove It's All For You

With very few runs in my last few weeks, I decided to tackle a good long run this morning. I ventured out on my original 5 km route to see just how far I could run. Unfortunately in the last 2 months I have only ran intervals of no more than 5 minutes, so it wasn't long before I was feeling low on motivation to keep on going. Although I have always felt that music was a very powerful tool for motivation, I really proved it to myself today, because it was the songs in my playlist that carried me through my 8.5 km run today.

Most notably, All For You by Sister Hazel. I've loved this song since it appeared on Now 3 in 1998 (for those of you that aren't familiar with this album, check it out here. Love it.) And somewhere in the early half of my run, it popped into my headphones. My split-second thought was to think of Nick, that I do the things I do for the love of my life. Which is very true. But not an instant later, I realized that this run, and everything else on this fitness and weight loss journey, should be for ME, not anyone else. Don't get me wrong, I've never been losing weight for Nick, or anybody else, it's always been my own desire. It just really dug in today when that song came on. And the lyrics took on a different meaning once they became about my own inner challenges. I don't think I ever felt so... intrinsic, for lack of a better word. It was a good feeling, and I feel like it's partially stemming from the personal training, and putting on a really sincere push to lose weight.

Speaking of personal training... being the holiday, I didn't meet with Natasha today, but she told me I could go in myself and go through a similar routine. Not wanting to face her Wednesday and have to tell her I didn't do it, I trekked in to the gym after my 80 minute run to go through a circuit of weights and cardio. Yes, I am certifiably insane.

Here are a few other songs that I really enjoyed on my run today. They aren't necessarily the best for tempo or helping keep step, I just found them encouraging and motivating, whether it was the lyrics or just the general mood of the song.

The Crow and The Butterfly - Shinedown
Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
Sail - AWOLNATION
Savin' Me - Nickelback
We Will Rock You - Nickelback
Life - Our Lady Peace
Nine In The Afternoon - Panic At The Disco