1st half marathon 2012 Run for VA wine
What's complicated, you ask? It is my relationship with running (or jogging if you will). I am currently training for my fourth half marathon. Every time I say that I have to go back in my head and list them -- it is only three that I have completed and yet I cant fathom that I have really done that. Then my eternal voice discounts the feat by saying something like "OK, so you finished three half marathons, but you don't run the whole thing and you are slow". What is that about? I can rarely mention to someone else that I do these races without mentioning that I am super slow, without discounting this feat. I have a mantra that I repeat in my head (usually on out and back races as just a wee bit into the race those fast runners are already on their way back and passing me) "Each to their own ability". I am telling myself not to compare myself with these fast runners and yet I still discount my own performance.
Maybe it is my own like/hate relationship with running. Another mantra I found myself repeating on one long hill slog early in this adventure I call running was "you never regret the run once you are done." Hmm, what does that say about before and during?
So back to my 4th half marathon. I paid for my registration, I booked my over priced hotel room and in one short week I will be flying down to Savannah, GA. I am really doing this and for the first time I was going to have more then 8 weeks to train. For the first 6 weeks I logging my long runs each weekend, every weekday morning the alarm would go off at 4:40 in hopes that three days a week I will fit in some morning mileage (and I have been averaging 2 or 3 short runs a week). But like most of my training, it is hard for me to keep up the intensity once those long runs reach the 9 mile mark. I didn't make the 10 mile long run, I just made excuses to myself and then a week had gone by -- so I planned on 11 for that next week but I had taken a week off -- the run started out slow, hard and I only made it 10.25 before calling it a day. Next Saturday I will run Rock 'n' Roll Savannah. Pretty sure I am signing up for New Orleans again this year too...you see, it's complicated.
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