Beating My Own Mental Weakness

OBJECTIVE
run

ACHIEVED
7.15 mi.@ 8:34/mi.

6:04 AM 70° 88% 5 mph

My body is still getting used to the change to daylight savings time. Don’t get me wrong, I really like daylight savings time. It’s just transitioning that seems to be a bit more of a challenge with each passing year. But I’m happy to report that I believe I’m almost fully transitioned.

I started this morning thinking that I’d run 5 miles. That’s after spending the yesterday thinking I’d run 6 miles this morning. For some reason, both distances seemed long once I got going. So the justifications started flowing through my head. (See what happens when I run without a plan!) The line of thinking generally went something like this: I’ll run 3 or 4 miles this morning then I’ll get another 3 tonight after work. It’s all the same, right?

Well, I’m proud to say that I beat myself back on this line of thinking. I ended up running the 6-mile Wimbledon Forest Loop then added on a mile back at the house for good measure (and as punishment for ever considering doing less!).

If you’ve been following along, you know I haven’t done any speed work for about 6 weeks. This isn’t a problem at the moment but if I’m going to get back to racing, I need the speed in my routine. I’m considering a heavy speed program put together by Ed Eyestone, BYU’s men’s cross country coach. He guarantees faster 5K and 10K times out of the program. However, it’s demanding and I’m still a bit gun shy about heavy speed work since my initial IT band blow out 17 months ago. So I’m still thinking about it.

As for my race calendar, I haven’t set anything yet but I’m considering the following:

Mar 14 Run The Woodlands 5K, The Woodlands, Texas
May 16 Ogden Half Marathon, Ogden, Utah
May 25 Bolder Boulder 10K, Boulder, Colorado
Jul 04 Peachtree Road Race 10K, Atlanta, Georgia
Aug 08 Rich Bouchard Memorial 10K, South Weber, Utah
Oct 03 St. George Marathon, St. George, Utah
May 20, 2010 Boston Marathon, Boston, Massachusetts

Of course, this is pretty much pie-in-the-sky and the reality is that I’ll probably only make about half of these.

PRE RUN
Weight = 160
Water

POST RUN
Water, multivitamin & Kashi GoLean cereal w/1% milk