Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Positive Thoughts


It’s 13-weeks until the NYC Marathon and surprisingly training is going well. I ran 32 km (20 miles) on Friday and didn’t start to fall apart until I had 4km to go. That has helped my confidence. Training in the heat this summer has been kicking my ass and I didn’t have a great long run last week as my brain was poaching itself in my skull. 

I get so paranoid that any little ache or pain is going to manifest into a sidelining injury that I am taking rest days, having regular massages and brace yourself…stretching!  Not to jinx myself but if things keep going this way I might actually have a great race. As a chronic over-exerciser this marathon training program might be just what I needed to learn how to set realistic goals. There’s irony for you, what other human would need to train for a marathon to learn how to take rest days?

As physically taxing as all this running is, the hardest part has been the mental game. When you have been running for a couple of hours little thoughts start to creep in, "take a walk break, you can’t run this far, you are going too slow, it’s too hard". Last week I struggled with not caving into these negative thoughts and as a result had some excruciating runs.  My goal for 20 miles, which I had never run before, was to start thinking positively before I even put my sneakers on.  Walking the dog before the run I kept repeating in my head “This is going to be a great run! I can’t wait to start!”…and it worked. I held on to that positive mantra all morning and during my run I was smiling, singing along to my music and loving life…well until 28km when my quads started a boycott, but I slowed down and took a few walk breaks and finished with a big ol’ grin on my face.

Think of all the things we could accomplish if we didn’t give into those doubts? I hear them all the time…I can’t do that I’m not strong enough, I’m too old to take that class. Well I didn’t think I could run 20 miles, and I did.

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