Thursday, September 24, 2009

Thoughtful Thursday

Day 32

Boston Qualifying Training. A good morning. Again last night was filled with wild dreams, including me running into Paul McCartney and George Harrison at a gas station in my hometown. Even more strange, I looked at George in my dream and said, “wait a minute, your not…”, at which point I promptly woke up. I looked at the clock and it was time to go work out, the alarm was about to go off.

I was a little tired this morning and my splits in the pool were slow. I was happy that today was a taper day for many of those swimming. Almost everyone in the pool except for me would be racing this weekend in Augusta, the Augusta Half Ironman. The workout was light distance, but still intense. I am still struggling with my kick in the water. If I can do a better job streamlining, I can knock sometime off my 100 meter splits. A good goal to work on… after December 12th.

I was talking to another swimmer about the upcoming marathon. They were shocked that I was so concerned with not being able to qualify, “your so fast…” she said. “Yeah, but…” was how I started my response. As I responded I thought to myself, this is the second conversation on this topic this week, and each time, I have responded with a guarded answer. Almost as if I am building in a reason for not being able to run and qualify. Even in this paragraph, I talk about concerns of NOT being able to qualify, rather than my effort and training and expectation to qualify.

I really need to change my perspective. 8:00 minute miles, for 26.2 miles should be a very reasonable accomplishment for me. However, earlier this year I failed. Why… mental, certainly that was part of it, training, every run I did was based on trying to hold an 8 minute or faster pace, by the time the race came, I had very inconsistent training twice taking 10 days off to recover. I thought I was doing well. I went out on one 16 mile run and was hitting 7:42’s, I did a 13 mile run at 7:33’s. I think the stress I was placing on my body early in the training beat me up.

On race day I felt ready, but my mind was more focused on the what if… very negative.
These next few weeks I need to really clear my mind. Trust the training and listen to my body. Though I am somewhat dreading the 18 miles alone tomorrow, there is a part of me that knows I need this run. I need to run it alone, and equally important, stay on pace, not a fast pace, but the prescribed 45-60 seconds per miles above marathon pace. I expect the run to be challenging, and I am hoping to chase away the negative thoughts that have been creeping into my mind.

Work will keep me busy today as I tie up many loose ends that have been dragging along these past few week. I will spend the afternoon prospecting and networking.

At lunch I will hit the weights and core...really working the core more and getting my body strong. No football tonight, but the grass needs cutting due to all the rain. That should get me warmed up for my big run in the morning.

Making dinner for the family tonight and off to be early, wake up is at 4:30 AM tomorrow. I already have the course plotted. It is a good run.

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