Day 1 of Marathon Training: a mental battle

It was a three round fight. Thank goodness the correct side won.

Round 1: My alarm went off at 4:55 a.m.. Hmmm... I REALLY wanted to stay in bed. It was cold and dark. Seriously. It was in the 30's. That is COLD for these parts. I laid there for a few minutes. I was dangerously close to falling back asleep resulting in a TKO for today's training. But I dragged myself out of bed.

Round 2: I was sipping my caffeinated beverage* and checking e-mail, thinking that I really didn't want to leave the house. I started researching birthday party ideas for my daughter and thought that I could have an hour of uninterrupted internet time. While it wasn't raining like it has been, it was still cold. And I am a wimp. But I put on my tights, put on a layer or two (not too much because I thought it might warm up) and finally left the house.

Round 3: I sat in my car just outside the gates of Lake Murray. Damn... I had forgotten my gloves. I could see Starbucks beckoning me. It was very tempting to blow off a tempo run for a hot grande skinny vanilla latte. This was the easiest round to win. I had already driven all the way over there... I would be an idiot to give up now. So... off I ran. I won the mental battle!!

The physical battle wasn't too bad. In fact, there wasn't much of a battle at all. I felt much stronger than I did during my run a week ago when I felt pretty darn sluggish. Today I felt really good. Because I had dragged my heels, I was coming up against the clock. I decided to cut my warm up and cool down to half mile each instead of the mile suggested on my training plan. My warm up was a bit faster than it should have been. I was freezing! I did my first half mile at an 8:47 pace-- oops.

The next three miles were pretty darn speedy. Even though my training schedule said to do them at an 8:25 pace, I guess I was doing more of a speed workout. Here are the splits:
1- 8:06
2- 8:17
3- 8:07
My cool down half mile was run at a 9:13 pace. Not exactly slow, but it felt slow. I think I can run 9-minute miles for quite a while. That is a good feeling. Overall, my average pace for four miles was 8:20.

I am glad that I fought and won the mental fight with myself. I still think that it is going to be an uphill battle to get motivated to train this time. I need to get into the groove.


*I have been drinking Zip Fizz for a while now. My friend, Jen, turned me on to it. I am not an early morning coffee drinker unless it is loaded with syrup and milk in a latte. Soda is too much for my tummy really early (although I am known to have a Diet Pepsi in the morning with my Luna Bar). I like my caffeine sweet, what can I say. Zip Fizz has a bunch of vitamins in addition to caffeine and it does the trick for me in the mornings.