EVERYBODY HAS ONE

Today’s run turned out to be a confidence booster. A couple of weeks ago, I took Lydiard’s standard schedule and converted the mileage to duration – based on how quickly I thought his athletes might be training. For example, Lydiard’s guys were probably running their 18 mile weekday run between 1:50 and 2 hours. At 8:00 pace, that means I should cover 14-15 miles for this run.

While that distance, by itself, isn’t daunting. It is, when you consider it’s run during the workweek, which means a very early wakeup call. To be honest, I thought 12-13 might be my weekday limit. Anyway...

Alarm set for 4:30.

Out of bed at 4:28.

First thoughts in my head; “What the hell am I doing getting up so early to go for a run? It’s the middle of December. It’s cold and dark….”

Luckily those thoughts were out of my head by the time I hit the stairs. Once I got out the door, it turned into a nice run. It was one of those days when I’d look up every 2-3 miles and be surprised by where I was at already. The miles just seemed to fly by – even though I was just running my ‘everyday’ pace, which is right around 8:00s.

I ended up getting in 14 miles in 1:53. I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record, er, I mean a broken MP3 player, but 37 degrees, calm, and clear paths definitely made this run more manageable than it should be at this time of year.

I think my mind wandered more than ‘normal,’ which helped the miles go by quickly. I was thinking of people I want to interview and the questions I’d ask them. I was also thinking about Brent’s recent post regarding excuses. His post basically said we should list our top-10 excuses and then think about how we can turn them into positives. Here’s the list I’ve come up with so far;

1. It’s too hot.
2. It’s too early in the season to run hard.
3. So-and-so beats me in practice; they should be ahead of me in a race.
4. I’m not competitive. I tend to do my own thing in a race, rather than compete.
5. I’m not a strong hill runner.
6. I’m too conservative (this covers a lot of things like, bumping mileage, going out hard in a race, racing frequently, etc).
7. I need the calories (regarding eating crap).
8. I’d rather spend my time and energy running more (regarding adding strength training).
9. I feel better when I don’t stretch.
10. It’s too hot.

With a new year around the corner, I’ll see if I can work on some of these excuses. I guess it’s no surprise that most of them revolve around mental toughness. I do need to work on that in 2007, along with some of the other more easily correctable excuses.

Quote of the day;

“Sometimes it’s an incredible drag. Just yesterday I went out and ran 23 miles and I was swearing and hitting mailboxes. I didn’t want to be out there but I knew I had to. I’d say most runners half-like and half-dislike running.” – Bill Rodgers