Doubting Miles

humpf.

not good.

Today we had a 14 mile long run. I woke up around 8am to say goodbye to Lisa (my cousin) and Evin (her boyfriend) as they had stayed with us the night before. As I was still sleepy from the long hard week the week before I went back and layed back down and slept to, oh I don't know 11:30!!! I NEVER sleep that much. NEVER! But sometimes the body needs to sleep and so apparently it was needed.

We started running at about 12:30. On the plus side, it had cooled down to a very nice, comfortable temperature and there was a nice drizzle as well. On the bad side, almost immediatly the arch of my foot started hurting. This has been happening on and off and I think it's just a warming up thing because it usually stops but today my head wouldn't stop doing the,

"You aren't fast enough."
"You won't ever qualify for Boston running a pace like this."
"Qualify for Boston? How about you won't even FINISH the marathon?"
"You are ruining Jason's run and screwing him so now he won't run fast either"

These thoughts are never good because I get all annoyed at the run and the slowness that it is becoming and I start picking fights with Jason. Although I still think he should go ahead of me when I am in pain and running really slow. There is no need for him to stay around a) a person running a pace that is way too slow and b) a crabby negative person.

So we bickered at each other for about the first 5 miles. Of course Jason was right and my arches stopped hurting by this point (I didn't tell him that then...I told him they stopped hurting at like mile 9), but I had lost so much motivation and had stopped to stretch many times that I knew there wouldn't be much speed for the rest of the day.

Oh I also should mention that it was raining when we left so I left Garmin at home. No need to break the expensive watch. I think we ended at 10+ minute miles which is a ways off our target pace.

I have to stop playing those doubting mind games so early into the long runs. If I had shut the hell up and just run and let my legs loosen up I am guessing we would have done the same pace that we have done for the last 2 weeks, but I lost more than just speed in those early miles, because I basically lost the whole run pace wise to my doubting self.

In the end, we finished and there is something to be said about that. I didn't turn around at 3 miles like I wanted, I pushed through and got through the run. I haven't missed one run or workout in the past three weeks and that makes me happy. This week we are working midnight - 8am and don't plan on missing any this week either :-)

We have a strides workout on Tuesday which I am planning on doing more correctly than the last few weeks. Faster on the sprinting part and slower on the recovery part.

And with that...ice bath here I come!