Friday, May 23, 2008

It's Time

Well, I am days away from starting my training for the California International Marathon in December. I haven't been very consistent with my running since my last marathon, which was February '07 (yeah, you read that right). I've never trained in the summer mainly because I despise the humidity. Yes, I'm aware I live in Texas but I usually get on my bike or do some wimpy runs at this time of year.

This years training season will be dedicated to my mental training, which has been my arch nemesis since I started racing way back when. I've never had an issue with my cardio fitness it has always been the voices in my head (yes, I am crazy, duh!). Today was one of those days where the voices were very loud.

I stepped outside this morning to meet Brenda and Jon for a 6 miler and I'll be damned if it wasn't thick as molasses outside at 5:45am. Geez, it's May people! We started running and I swear I needed a straw to extract some oxygen from the air. I felt like a 90 y/o woman with emphysema running without her oxygen tank. This was before we even hit mile 1...I thought to myself no way I can make 6 and immediately my confidence was flushed down the toilet. I started questioning my ability to train during these summer months.

Now, I'm in the process of reading a book called 'Running Within' which addresses the mental aspects of training. I worked on putting some of the ideas to test today and let's say I may need to read this book 2 to 3 more times for it to sink in. I start one of the reverse negative thinking ideas and it lasts about a milli-second before my body says, 'no way lady, you're not running in this humidity.' The good news is my training partners held me accountable today and I kept trudging along with them.

Here's to a new training season!!!

3 comments:

Sadie J said...

Good luck with the new training season, Katie. Keep working on your mental game, and in a few weeks the humidity will feel a lot easier to deal with.

Just think, by December you are going to be so strong! Summer training makes you really tough!

MW said...

i'm glad you ended this on a positive note, because if you hadn't, i would have told you to quit your bitchin', and just get out there are run.
but i won't.
; )

Mental lesson #1 = You GET to go run. Enjoy it. Stop bitching about it.

md said...

good job on your run!

I ran late this morning and the heat almost killed me, but sleeping in was worth it.

I always compare running in the texas summer to a boot camp, if you can survive it, you will be so much stronger come the fall.

that sounds like a good book you're reading, I should look into it.