I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for quotes, especially those of the motivational kind. I have a whole board dedicated to them on Pinterest, and at least 20 other picture quotes saved on my phone. I'm not alone in this quote appreciation: people proudly wear them on t-shirts, hang them on their walls in the form of posters, and even tattoo them on their bodies. We like quotes because they reinforce ideas we already believe in more eloquent language, or because they offer a new perspective.

As far as motivational quotes go, they can be broken down into the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are ones I love, such as author Anais Nin's "Life expands or shrinks in proportion to one's courage", but then there are ones that make me cringe. This "motivational" fitness quote (author unknown) is particularly frightening: "Crawling is acceptable, falling is acceptable, puking is acceptable, crying is acceptable, blood is acceptable, pain is acceptable, but quitting is not." Yikes.

As a naïve high school athlete, I used to think that being motivated at all times was one of the most important aspects of success. I thought I had to wake up early every morning with the burning desire to get out on the roads and achieve my goals. I mistakenly believed that I should feel strong, refreshed, and accomplished after every workout, and if for some reason I didn't feel so great before a track practice, I would push through the pain like a warrior and come out on the other side feeling ten times better than I had when I started.

I had to learn the hard way that this was not the case at all. My high school track coaches believed that their athletes should push themselves as hard as they possibly could every single day, and we would even do hard workouts the day before races. This gave my body no time to recover, so by the end of each season, I was completely burnt out. My times would get slower, each practice would be more frustrating and painful, and I was just not mentally in it anymore. I remember running up the final hill of the last race in my first cross country season junior year thinking "Thank God this is over." Not only did I have no motivation to run, but I lost the will to do anything at all.

For some reason, no matter how bad the previous season, I always showed up for the first day of the next one, knowing how mentally and physically exhausting my coaches' ridiculous training philosophy was. I don't think that had anything to do with motivation, but it had everything to do with dedication. Motivation is fleeting, but dedication is what keeps us going day in and day out. I definitely don't wake up every morning raring to get out the door and run, but I do it anyways. Some days when I don't want to run, I end up feeling great and finish more energized than when I started, but some days I feel awful every step of the way.

I've tried many things over the years to make myself more motivated on days when I'm just not feeling it. I've watched "workout Wednesday" videos on Flotrack, played pump up music, bought a fancy training journal in which I log my mileage, watched a TED talk given by a magician who trained himself to hold his breath for 17 minutes, and, of course, kept a giant list of inspirational quotes. But the truth is, motivation is not something that can be forced, so from now on, I'm going to strive for dedication instead.

Speaking of quotes, here's one from Mark Z. Danielewski that I think is very fitting: "Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer." I tend to feel very discouraged when I lose my motivation, but maybe the days when I don't feel like running but do it anyways should be celebrated. I may not run as fast or accomplish as much as I do when I'm feeling good, but struggling through the negative energy will just solidify my passion for the sport in the long term.