I booked our hotel for Disney last week. I'm very much looking forward to the vacation, not so much doing the Goofy Challenge. I still have plenty of time to train but the time will go by fast and while I can wing it through a 4- or 5-mile race, there will be no winging it through 39.3 miles. I'll be damned if I have a repeat of the last time I did the Disney half at 250 lbs taking almost 4 hours. Four excruciating, soul-killing hours. I had great intentions of training and losing all kinds of weight when I registered for that event the previous March. I didn't. Pride made me complete that event even though I had no business being there. I was going to be damned if I had planned a vacation around it and had to spend the week seeing everyone in the parks with their medals.
I'm not in that position right now but it still could be a very miserable time for me if I'm not trained. So the fear of that and the realization that in 17 days I'll be off from running for at least 2 weeks, probably more, triggered what needed to off in my head.
Saturday was hill day. It was less ugly than last Saturday but still not pretty. That route was never easy for me, even at my running best last year, but it certainly was better. It dawned on me when I was about halfway through and hating life that the only thing that ever made me better on that course was doing it. Again and again and again. It was going to take persistence and constant effort to get back that ability.
Sunday I had a little pity party for myself, probably because of Saturday's run. I was going to go to the trail then decided not to. Then all those thoughts outlined above got the better of me so I went to the trail around 1 pm, the hottest time of the day. Part of my problem with motivation is pacing. I don't know how to do it anymore. We sprint and sprint and sprint at Xfit. Granted, my sprint is someone else's jog but when I take off at that pace for a medium distance run it's no wonder I'm done 1.5 miles in. The other night we did a 2-mile run but that was after 150 wall balls. It took me almost 24 minutes to do those 2 miles because my legs were destroyed. I didn't run the next day because of it. This all began a crappy downward spiral where I was once again questioning my ability to pull off even a 5K at this point.
As I drove to the trail I planned my strategy. I used to strategize all my long runs when I trained for NYC. It was calming to me and made me feel like I had some control over how I was going to perform. I told myself to: Just. Be. Consistent. Go out as slow as I needed to but finish the 6 miles at a controlled, even pace.
It went well. Overall pace for the 6 miles was 10:53. I'm not complaining. It's the trail, it's a long, steady climb for the first 3 miles, and it's the first solid, consistent run I've had in awhile. Miles 2 and 3 were within 6 seconds of each other even though I was still ascending the hill. Now that I have a little confidence back I know I'll get down on pace. It was a negative split and that's always a good sign.
While I was running it was nice to lapse back into distance thinking, something that was so familiar and comfortable for me last year. One of the best things I was able to do for myself fairly consistently was get the thought in my head at the very first step that I'd be out there for however long I needed to be but I was going to finish. That thought slows me down and puts me more in the process rather than counting the minutes or miles until it's over. Those thoughts come later in the run but I've had runs where I'm counting the miles from the second I start and those are the most miserable ones.
I need to work on retraining my mind as much as I do my body for distance running. Since so much of what we do at Xfit is for time it's natural to want to finish as quickly as possible. I can't say I've ever enjoyed the process of getting to that finish at Xfit but it's not a "ponder your thoughts" kind of working out. I used to enjoy the process of distance running (for the most part). Sometimes I liked thinking about things, sometimes I enjoyed letting my mind go completely blank. Maybe the difference between distance running thinking and Xfit thinking is that at Xfit my overriding thought is "Just survive." Survive the next rep, survive the next lap around the building, just keep moving and survive." When I'm doing it right, distance running has a different feel. "Just survive" has its place too, like in the last few miles of a distance race, but I don't usually start out that way.
After my run I stopped at the beach on the way home. I've lived in my town for 5 years but have never gone before. I must have still been enjoying the "it will take as long as it takes" thinking because I wasn't in a rush to get home and do nothing like I usually am. I have no idea how long I stayed, it could have been 20 minutes, it could have been an hour. I wasn't counting time, I was just in the moment. And that's probably the best thing I've done for my fitness in months.
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