Head Games

With our first 5K behind us, it seemed only logical to me to pinpoint the next event/goal.  Now, ideally, the next event would either be another 5K or a 10K, but the only 10Ks that I'm aware of aren't until the end of April/beginning of May, so in comes a curveball.  Oxford is a beautiful little town.  I'm not crazy about all the chain stores that have cropped up there since I graduated 6 years ago, but there's something charming about the area AWAY from West Jackson.  On February 26, 2011, there will be a half-marathon there (Run for Hope), and for some crazy reason, I've got it in my head that I'd like to try it.  In a way, it sounds like a short period of time to train for 13.1 miles, but my lead time from the 5K to the half-marathon is a respectable 18 weeks, which in theory sounds doable.  Maybe.  I haven't made the final decision yet.  I am following my training schedule for a half-marathon and will make up my mind by December 1st.  Hubs is in the same boat.

At any rate, when selecting a training schedule, I decided to upgrade my 5K Coach app to the Run Coach Pro, and then shoot for 4 days of running a week, with my long run on Saturday.  By default the other running days are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Last week, instead of giving myself credit for an easy run on Saturday on the new schedule, I swapped the first easy run to Sunday, which put me at running for 5 days straight.  I found that to be a bit taxing, so in future, I'll try to stick with my plan.

As we ran our long run on Saturday, we discussed the potential for mental roadblocks on our quest for 13.1.  I mean I can already tell you that there's a big difference in my mindset already in my training.  Before, it was all about making it through that 20 or so minutes.  Just running.  Now that there is about twice as much time involved in a run...  there's a two part process: 1) need to conserve energy to make it through the whole thing - mostly a physical thing; 2) me trying to wimp out because it's just SOOO long - mental.  Now #2 was definitely NOT in play in my 5K training, so this is sort of a new thing.  I mean there's a point where you don't want to put too much wear and tear on your body too soon (= smart thing).  However, I know for a fact that for the time being at least, the wear and tear is not the reason for me trying to wuss out. 

It's just too long.  It's just so far.   I know it's an easy run, but I'm going too slow.   I shouldn't even try to do a half-marathon yet... 

Negative garbage.  I felt it about half way through my 40 minute run this morning.  To the point where I was walking it every 15-30 seconds.  Once I focused on just making it to the shorter milestones, just focusing on running my best in the moment...  the negative melted away and I ran the rest of the way. 

On a different note, the weekend was rough.  We'd been planning on going to the Auburn vs. Ole Miss game since the beginning of the season, but knew that Nana wouldn't be there to keep the wee man as she had a delightful trip of her own scheduled that weekend, so my momma was gonna keep him.  Well, my aunt, who has been in a nursing home for quite some time, became gravely ill and my momma felt that it might be best if our baby boy went to stay with my sister instead so she would be able to tend to anything that came up.  My aunt died around midnight on Friday, and Momma was able to tend to the things that she needed to get done for the most part, but my sister was so excited at the prospect of getting to keep him that Momma went ahead and let her take a turn.

I know my baby had a wonderful time (although the game SUCKED), but I tell you, it was awful being away from him for two whole nights.  I realize that it's good to have alone time and to let him get comfortable with other people, but... wow, I guess I just didn't know how hard it would be.  We were just so happy to bring him home again yesterday.