It's been a couple of weeks since a stellar 10 mile run and I feel like I have not had a good run since then. Last week was a real downer of a week, despite was dailymile says.
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I did hills and some speed work. But my long run was an epic fail. It was supposed to be 11 miles on my actual half marathon course. I ended up doing 8. I just didn't have it in me. I haven't even uploaded it from my Garmin yet because I just don't want to look at it. It will be full of walking breaks, paused stops and other such crappiness. I was devastated after this run. I think it was made worse by the fact that it was on my actual half marathon course. I mean, if I can barely do it now, what is it going to be like 6 weeks from now?
After a few minutes of whining about my first world runner problems I decided that there was no way I was going to quit. I have a very clear goal of beating last year's time and I have six more weeks to do it. (Ok, 5 1/2 weeks now because I am a blogging slacker.) Here's a quick overview of my plan:
- At least 4 days of running per week.
- One mid-distance run per week: I only have time for 5-6 miles before work if I leave the house pretty early. But I need at least one mid-week run longer than 3-4 miles.
- Hills: My first half marathon course is *&$%-ing hilly. I am running a very hilly 3 mile loop once a week
- One easy run.
- Long runs: I want to get in at least 3 more double digit runs before my first half this fall. My mental game needs a serious workout on the long runs though. This is where being a solo runner is the hardest.
In my opinion the only way out of my funk is to work harder. There is no way I am not going to do these races.
So far this week I have a 5 miler and a hill run down already. I'm going home to Philadelphia this weekend and looking forward to laying down 10ish miles in my hometown.
How do you build up your confidence in the middle of a training cycle?
I definitely get down on myself and lose confidence if I have a bad long run. The best advice I have is to keep pushing through, and eventually it will get better (probably not great advice, but it works ... eventually). Lately, speed workouts have really been boosting my confidence. I feel like superwoman after these sessions.
ReplyDeleteI've had no desire to run lately. Which is weird for me. I feel like I'm slogging though my training (Newton Chilly Half Marathon in November) and doing bare minimum to get the miles in. Yesterday I found my garmin ( I've been running garminless all summer.. not intentionally, just because I didn't feel like looking) and plugged it in. I was instantly reminded of the last time I used it (the day I got engaged to the love of my life :-D ) and my recent 5k pr (by 4 minutes!!! wahoo!!!) I also plugged the PR into the McMillian magical pace calculator, and was assured that if I put in the training I might actually get my sub2 half marathon this fall. I feel like I've totally revitalized my training confidence!
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