So, I was on the treadmill tonight and as I approached Mile 3 I started to pump myself up to keep going. You know when you get to the point of tiredness on your work out but you know you have to keep going to meet your goal, you can't slow down or give up. You just have to do it as you sweat through your clothes profusely. I am just wondering how you all motivate yourselves to keep going. I know that for me when I reach that point I just make sure I have good hardcore rock music on my iPod to keep my adrenaline going. I gotta tell you its a hard thing to keep up with but I made it to 4 miles tonight.

Music here too.

I put my dumbells away last night, mumbling "I no more want to lift weights than fly to the moon." Then I spied my MP3 .... 25 minutes later ... and I gotta tell ya ... I feel a whole lot more accomplished this morning than if I'd wussed out like I was going to.

Love this question!

What keeps me going is: the fact that I used to get winded by jogging for 3 minutes and yesterday I jogged for HALF AN HOUR straight! I love the way my body is becoming more graceful and feels "feminine" to me.

A lot of running coaches will tell you when training for long-distances to have a "mantra". Something easy to say repeatedly in your head that has some sort of meaning to you. For some reason, mine for the past year and a half has been from a Killer's song. At the end of my favorite song of theirs, they repeatedly sing "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier." And it kind of builds each time to a great beat that I can vary depending on how fast I'm running as I say it in my head. It totally helps me when I want to quit, funny as that may be.

Runner's World had an article on mantras a couple of months back that was fun.

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/...1776-0,00.html

When I'm walking hard or jogging I say to myself "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me..." I grew up religious and I'm not overly so now but it's something from my childhood. When I started a business at the age of 23 I used to run and run the track repeating this. Now when I'm stressed and workout I'll repeat it so it must be a mantra of some sort for when I exercise for stress.

Otherwise when I want to stop, like this am on the stair step while watching the Today show I just made myself. I was thinking in my head, ok, if I got off I'd just go sit on the couch, what's another 20 minutes, it'll go by quick, I need to stick with my goals. I can only handle about 30 minutes of working out at a time usually unless it's outdoors like walking or biking with my boy. I like the Nike saying - can that be a mantra - Just Do It!

Horsey, that's a pretty good all pupose one. You should post it in one of the threads about motivational sayings. I'm pretty sure that I alone do not have the strength to jog (I didn't for 46 years!)... but I do it.

I have two things that keep me going, one is the thought of where I came from, and how well I've done so far, so I don't want to waste that.

The other thing is that I love it when my husband tells me that he's proud of me, which is something that he regularly does, it really keeps me going

I set calorie goals for my daily exercise--usually 300 calories, but occasionally I'll do 450. 300 calories usually takes me about 32 minutes, and if I'm feeling lazy I tend to have very stern discussions with myself in which I basically tell myself repeatedly that I am NOT getting off the treadmill until I have burned 300 calories. I can choose to get down on my hands and knees and crawl for 4 hours to get to 300 calories, or, I can just suck it up and run for 5 more minutes. My choice but the 300 calories are a must. I usually decide to keep running I can be a lazy person, but I'm fortunate to have a stern inner disciplinarian to keep me on task.

right now i am training for a half marathon...and like leighHop and runner's world recommend, i have my own little mantra, in addition to some good rock music, i repeat to myself "my legs are as light as feathers" - it works for me - or i repeat to myself the 2 quotes in my sig.

That one is very upbeat and positive. Mine is less so:

I ate pasta, now I gotta pay. I ate pasta, now I gotta pay.

Of course the food changes, but almonds, pizza and chocolate all fit very nicely!