From Running Times online...

Developing Intrinsic Motivation

Learn to weather the weather, whatever the weather

By Eric Grossman
As featured in the November 2010 issue of Running Times Magazine

Remember when the multipurpose shoes kids wear were called tennis shoes? I wore them to practice when I first went out for high school cross country. When coach took me to the running store, we picked out the gray-on-blue Tiger X-Calibers. When I wore through the soles, I got another pair, and then another after that. If I lined up all the shoes I've worn out since then, heel to toe, they'd make a trail clear from my hometown to where I've landed, 321 miles away.



Coach Worful carefully tended my budding running career. He took the team to the sports rehab clinic to learn stretching and strengthening exercises. He spoke privately with my parents about my potential. He actively involved me in important training and racing decisions. But I set the alarm for 6 a.m. so that I could rise in time to fill a thermos with orange juice and ice cream, drop my backpack at my friend's door, and then run the 4.5 miles to school holding the thermos in my hand so that I could have an Orange-Julius-style shake when I arrived.

Twenty-eight years later, I still rise before dawn on many mornings to supplement my training mileage. My wife, burrowing deeper under the covers, thinks almost audibly: How do you do it?
Read on here.