Enough of Winter already. I have found myself lacking motivation for the past couple of weeks. I am just not that excited to get out there right now. It is a bit of a struggle to get out the door. Funny thing is, I thought training for Boston would be motivation enough. It hasn't turned out that way. It is almost as if getting to Boston was the motivating factor, that now I have qualified, what I was striving for has been attained. This is also explains the lack of posts lately... I just simply don't have as much motivation for all things running lately.... at least not at my normal level.
With that rolling about in the back of my mind, I set out for a 15 miler today - I wasn't excited to get out there, but you know there is something to be said for just getting out there.... sometimes the magic just happens and when you least expect it. I planned on running the following, 2 warm up miles, 11 miles (at what I hoped would be race pace of 7:05) and 2 cool down miles. Going into it, I had my doubts that this could be achieved today, but like I alluded to already, sometimes the magic just happens.
As soon as I took my first 10 steps I knew I was going to have a decent day as I was reining myself in as opposed to struggling to get up to speed which has been the case far too often recently. Normally my warm up miles are in the vicinity of 8:00 - 8:30 min / mile. Today, my first two miles were 7:37 and 7:42 and this was while making a conscious effort to slow down. Then came the tempo miles. I ran the 11 miles at a 6:57 clip and felt comfortable doing it. Following this, I ran a couple of cool down miles. All in all a pretty good run considering how I had felt going into it. Including warm up and cool down miles, I ran at a 7:08 pace. Going into it, if I would have ran the 11 tempo miles at that pace I would have been satisfied... to have that be result for the entire run was really encouraging.
Hopefully, the blahs will be over soon. Perhaps today's run will do something to pull me out of my doldrums - I must admit to feeling quite a bit better now than I did previously. If nothing else, maybe it is a foreshadowing of a good race on Patriot's Day with my nemesis. Heck knows, he should be providing all the inspiration I need.
About Me
- Steve Schumph
- Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
- A middle-aged man trying to fight the ravages of Father Time and increase his fitness enough to be competitive in a marathon with his childhood friend .
5 comments:
Well, that's a great run, then! nice going, and keep it up! (but don't peak too soon...)
very nice run indeed! Hope that winter is over soon. Winter has worn it's welcome with me. hang in there. :)
I think we're all totally fed up with winter and suffering the blahs! Glad your mojo seems to be back, great job on the long run! Sub 7 min/mile is lighting fast!
Those are some terrifying numbers, dude. Truly terrifying, especially if you were as relaxed as you said. (I'm not doubting your veracity here. But, as you know, sometimes how we feel has something to do with how we've done. That is, good numbers diminish the pain. But only up to a point.)
Keep up the good work. I'll bet that your spinning classes have a lot to do with the ease you're feeling during even tough runs. I'd better do some leg work of my own if I'm going to keep up with you.
I have been extremely hit or miss with runs lately. I had one this week that was truly disappointing... so who knows? Keeping up with me might be very easy.
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