Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Mantras

From The American Heritage Dictionary (courtesy of www.dictionary.com):

man·tra (mān'trə, mŭn'-), noun.

  • Hinduism A sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer, meditation, or incantation, such as an invocation of a god, a magic spell, or a syllable or portion of scripture containing mystical potentialities.

  • A commonly repeated word or phrase: "Today's edutainment software comes shrinkwrapped in the magic mantra: 'makes learning fun.'" (Clifford Stoll).

  • Now I don't believe that anything I come up with will be scripture or have mystical potentialities but I've landed on what will be my phrase to focus me over the next 17 weeks as I prepare for the Twin Cities Marathon. My theme, if you will.

    Do the work.

    It's as simple as that. I always have a good plan in place. I'll have the running planned out, with the appropriate workouts and paces I want/need to hit. I'll figure out what to modify/drop during the three weeks we'll be traveling this summer. I'll have the ancillary stuff penciled in - the strength stuff, the foam rolling, etc. I'll have a plan to try and shed the 8-10 pounds I need to lose. At times I might have too many plans.

    This year it's not about the plan, it's about executing the plan.

    Do the work.

    No bitching or complaining. It's time to put aside the momentary gratification of just one more beer, or staying up late to finish the movie, or being lazy and not eating at home (which usually leads to the "just one more beer") and making sure I do the work.

    2 comments:

    solarpowered said...

    Do the work.

    Simple. I love it.

    Joe said...

    That's a simple but rock solid mantra to have, and based on what I've seen, you are doing the work. Keep that mojo going for you