Another "mental toughness" day for me. I realized today how much I like to stay in my comfort zone. I love perfect conditions and fresh, snappy legs. When conditions are less-than-perfect, I tend to make excuses and lose it mentally. I want to improve my mental fortitude, so I decided to make a note of days when I feel I overcame an obstacle by toughness and positive thinking. Hopefully, by recognized the days that I persevered over hard things, I can carry those experiences into race situations.
Jenny and I texted back and forth this morning, trying to decide whether to brave the 20-30 mph winds, or try for better conditions later. Finally, we decided to suck it up and get our run in. I'm not going to lie. It was very hard. I was feeling yesterday's tempo run, and my legs were heavy. After being battered by the wind for 4 miles, we turned out of the wind. While it was a relief to have the wind at our back, I realized that we had pushed ourselves hard running into the wind. I never completely recovered.
But, I feel a sense of accomplishment now that the run is finished. And it could be much worse. I could be running in Montana in a 30 below blizzard. 7:15 average (more or less. My watch died at 11.4 miles. Jenny will have the exact average.)
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