Finding My Confidence, Part 1

Marathon training started out like gangbusters.  For four weeks, I got in all my miles, all my speed workouts (even those dreaded Yasso 800s), and all my long runs (including a great 10 miler).  Then things fell apart.  I’m not sure what happened.  I missed a long run (beer was involved).  I missed a mid-distance run (beer was again involved).  I went on vacation.  I was busy at work getting ready for a trial.  Before I knew it, two weeks had gone by, I’d hardly run any miles, and I all but forgot what a long run entailed.

I was mad at myself, but I was also starting to get worried.  I’m trying to run a marathon.  This isn’t something I can just half-ass for the next few weeks and then wake up on November 3 expecting to run 26.2 miles.  I don’t want to be miserable, and I don’t want to be out there for five hours.  Despite my fears, I still couldn’t find the motivation to get back on schedule.

I had expected lots of running while I was in San Francisco.  In spite of (or maybe because of) the hills, it’s one of my favorite places to run.  There’s nothing like running along the Bay, through the Presidio, and over to the Golden Gate Bridge.  I’d been looking forward to doing that again since the last time I did it in April of 2011.  It was going to be thirty+ degrees cooler than home, and I was anxious for a fast pace.  We were there for a week.  We ran twice.  I don’t know what happened.  Our first run was great – it was cool; we were fast.  Then it was like some weird depression fog came over me.

We got home on a Wednesday (after 24 hours of being in airports and flying), and upon arrival were greeted by near-triple digit temps and humidity.  That fog followed me home, settled in, and I swear it started talking to me.  “You missed your long run.  It’s already Wednesday afternoon.  You aren’t going to run today.  You’ll never get  your miles in.  You can’t run five days in a row after missing so much time.  Just sit on the couch until next week.”  Not only did I listen, but I bought into it, too.

The weekend rolled around, and still exhausted from “sleeping” on an airplane, I chose sleep over running.  Knowing that I needed to be up by 6:30 in order to accomplish any decent mileage, I repeatedly hit the snooze button until I turned off the alarm.  When I peeked at the clock again, it was 8:45.  Game over.

I wanted to believe that I could just start fresh on Monday.  Just put the past few weeks behind me and start over.  I had a tough speed workout on the calendar and a 12 mile run to try to make up for the missed distance.  If I could get through it all, I would consider myself to be back on track.  The catch was that I was going to be out of town Monday and Tuesday for the trial.  Travel, stress, anxiety, and final preparations were going to make morning runs impossible.  Illinois was just has hot as Indiana.  Did I have it in myself to go out and run in the heat of the late afternoon?

I wasn’t sure, even though I knew if I didn’t get my sh*t together, it would be time to start thinking about changing my entry to the half.

Curious to find out what happens?  Come back tomorrow for Part 2!