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Meg on the Run: My No. 1 Running Tip Leading Up to Race Day

Our girl Meg from the new Meg on the Run series is back! Today she shares how she’s gearing up for race day — and her top running tip to keep her motivated! 

By the time your race is a few weeks away, you’ve been training for a long time. Your training runs are longer, almost all of your cardio is running, and if you’re like me, the dread is growing and you’re kind of sick of it all. I wore my tallest, flimsiest stiletto heels each day for the week before my race.

They're cute though, huh?

They’re cute though, huh?

I figured that if I broke my ankle, it wouldn’t be the worst thing.

*Spoiler alert — my race was last weekend. I finished it, and I’m still alive! But we’ve got to build up to that. This article is about getting yourself through the home stretch of your training.

You know how you hear a new album that you absolutely love, and you could listen to it on repeat all day, every day? Try making it your running soundtrack, and see how long it takes to get sick of it. In my case, no matter how much I love a song, after it’s been through mile 8 with me, I’m ready to delete it forever. The problem is, with all this training, all of my favorite songs have been through that awful mile 8. How on earth is my music supposed to power me through 13.1 miles when I’m tired of every tune?

I discovered a way to fix this problem, completely thanks to fortunate timing, when I went to see an Everclear concert a few nights before a race a few years ago. Everclear was never my favorite band, and I hadn’t really listened to them much since high school, but I knew all the songs, and the energy of that show gave all those tracks new life. For several weeks following the show, listening to Everclear transported me back to that club, where I felt like I could jump and dance and sing forever.

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Maybe you can’t make it to a good concert right before your big race, but I found another trick that works in a similar way. Go for a long drive with a good friend, and blast high-energy music. Rock out together, sing at the tops of your lungs, and dance like idiots (while driving safely, of course) to all every guilty pleasure track in your collection. (Ke$ha, anyone?) Then put those tunes on your race day playlist, and you’ll feel happy and energized when you hear them on your run.

Honestly, of all the running tips I could offer, this is my most valuable one. Find a way to inject your playlist with a new kind of awesome, and you may even enjoy that crazy race. —Meg

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