A Change of Focus

Ever since I decided not to go to China to run the Half Wall Half Marathon, I've been lame in my commitment to running.

Sure, Maui is partly to blame - that place will put you into a languid state no matter where you start.

But, even so, after my return, last week definitely didn't look anything like what you'd see on any training plan 6 weeks before a half marathon race.  Particularly one where I'm contemplating trying to run at speedy F's target marathon pace to help her reign it in for the first half of her first marathon.  Unfortunately, despite my training, the truth is that even though I'm not going to China, I'm still running the 1st half marathon of the SF Marathon.

Thankfully, this week, I got my act together.  And, I'm proud to say, I knew myself well enough to just do it the way I know works for me -- Nothing you'd read about in any running book (that I know about).

When I am in a running funk, I have learned, I have to give myself permission to just walk or jog at an egregiously slow pace -- I just need the space to get it done.  So, I buckle down and set an aggressive mileage goal for the week and promise myself that I will hit it, no matter what, no matter how.  (Pro note - this requires an abundance of time that I often do not have at my disposal).

The freedom to do the miles slow almost always causes some sort of fundamental shift in my attitude.  I finish the miles, the long period of time on my feet pushes my fitness, and voila, I'm out of my funk (of course, finding the motivation to make this commitment and the time to pull it off in any given week is another trick entirely...).

So, here I am, I'm post Saturday long run of 8 great miles with F plus 2.6 mediocre run-walking finishing ones solo and headed into tomorrow's recovery run, where, so long as I manage to finish 2 miles or more, I'm guaranteed to hit my first week over 40 miles since Mid-February (peak mileage for the last marathon).

Now that feels better.