Motivation.

I really didn't want to run this morning. Every muscle fiber in my body was screaming at me to go back to sleep. I almost listened. The comfort of the bed in my mom's spare room was calling me, and I didn't relish another hot and steamy run in the wee hours of an Alabama morning.

But I got up, got dressed, and went for the run. I think sheer force of habit was what propelled me into my clothes and out the door.

A 7 mile run was what was on the training schedule. I didn't want to go 7 miles after running a 5K race yesterday. But I programmed the Garmin and took off up my mom's driveway to the street, my thighs screaming their usual beginning-of-a-run protests the entire time. I took a left onto the street, thinking there were less hills that way. I also planned on kicking it down a notch on the speed today to appease my thighs.

Well, I was right about less hills. But my plans for slowing things down was blown at about 0.75 miles out, when the dogs came.

I was running around a curve when I saw the first one, a blonde mid-size dog that was roaming in a front yard. He barked and circled, and I thought I was in the clear, seeing as he was staying in the yard. I planned on trotting right on by until I saw what he was really doing-calling his buddies. Two larger black dogs appeared, caught sight of me, and then the barking began in earnest.

I had quickly turned tail when I saw the two black buddy-dogs appear in the yard, but I still heard them barking behind me long after I thought they shouldn't be. At this point I still wasn't running very fast, just plodding along in the opposite direction of the dogs. But when I turned around to check where those dogs were, I saw that they had left the yard and were high-tailing it down the street after me. In my mind their slobbering barking faces were hell-bent on having my sweaty human flesh for breakfast.

Needless to say I had to crank up the speed. My Garmin watch has pre-programmed speed zone settings like "run" and "jog" and "slow run." I would categorize the speed with which I ran down the street in a new zone of my own design called "hauling some serious ass." I ran in this zone for a full 800 meters, until I heard the barking finally fade away.

Talk about some unexpected speed work. And some unexpected motivation. After that, I busted my butt trying to get that run done in case those dogs were roaming the highway on which I was running, trying to catch the scent of my sweaty flesh again.

Fear can sometimes be a great motivator. Not exactly ideal, but this morning it got the job done. Sometimes I'll take motivation wherever I can get it.