Finding My Confidence, Part 2

When we last left off, I was wondering whether I could motivate myself to run in the mid-afternoon heat, on a Monday.  After a few training cycles, I’ve finally found a schedule that works.  I run 5 days a week: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, with speed work on Tuesdays, and long runs on Sundays.  With this summer’s heat, morning running is the only way for me to get it done.

I checked into the hotel, and flopped onto the bed, eating a mint and staring at the ceiling.  It was hot, but I wanted to run.  I needed to burn off some of the anxious energy.  I changed clothes, hopped in the car, and drove over to the University of Illinois campus.  Unfamiliar with campus aside from the above park, I just started running.  I took off at a decent pace, but the temperature and lack of water during the day caught up to me, and I only logged three miles.  But three miles is better than none.

On Wednesdays, my husband and I run with Back on My Feet Indianapolis Team Manchester.  Wednesday runs are usually only 30-35 minutes, so we get in between three and four miles.  Most weeks we tack on another two miles before heading home, but my husband has been dealing with an IT band issue, so this week we called it quits after the 3.75 team run.

By this point in the week, I was a little behind on miles, but getting back on track.  Up next was a speed workout I had been dreading – 6×800.  I had successfully completed two 4×800 sessions, but adding two more when I had been so lax about training freaked me out.  I woke up Thursday to rain, thunder, and lightning.  I was happy for the much-needed shower, but lightning meant no go on the run.  The rained cooled things off significantly, but by the time I got home from work, the sun was out and it was a steamy mess.  I postponed the run again, telling myself it just made more sense to do it Friday morning.

Friday morning came around and I just couldn’t drag myself out of bed.  I started thinking I would just skip it altogether.  There was no way I was going to do six 800s at a 4:00 pace anyway.  Having worked two 10+ hour days earlier in the week, I was planning to leave work early, and I decided I would just run in the afternoon. To my surprise, it was quite pleasant out.  I got home, sat on the couch debating with myself for a while, and then decided I just needed to go DO IT.  No more excuses.  I’d already changed my Garmin interval workout.

I do my 800 workouts on and around Butler’s campus.  A few hills, lots of straightaways, few people to worry about weaving past.  As I finished my second 800, it became clear that while it was much cooler out, it was still really warm in the sun and I had not worn the proper shirt.  I finished the third, and with three more to go, I decided it was OK to walk a bit during the rest intervals.  I finished them all, still managed to jog/walk the mile home, and somehow hit 4:00 or less on 4 of the 6.  Wait, what was that I was feeling? Oh, yeah – confidence.  She was coming back.

I started mentally preparing for Sunday’s long run after that speed workout.  I had a slow recovery run on Saturday, but woke up ready to go Sunday morning.  My legs were still heavy, so I started slowly.  The weather was perfect.  By the time I hit the turnaround point, I felt great.  I had been picking up the pace with each mile, and as I turned to go home I made a conscious effort to continue speeding up.  I’ll be honest, the last couple of miles were hard, but I finished strong with the last mile at an 8:24 pace.

Despite some hiccups, I did what I said I needed to do – I got in all of my runs.  As I proudly looked at my Daily Mile graph for the week, I started to once again believe that I will tackle 26.2 come November.  This week’s long run is 14 miles, which will be the longest distance I have run to date.  I know that clearing the hurdle of running farther than a half marathon will be a huge confidence boost, and I’m looking forward to it.  I’m also not ready to give up on my 4 hour goal, and I started out this week with renewed purpose.  No more slacking off.  No more excuses.  Just focus, running, and having fun.