Three Things: Positive Mindset

One of my biggest areas to improve upon is the mental side of running. Some days running is just plain HARD and it doesn't take long to get my brain on board with that truth. I recently read Deena Kastor's new book and it gave me a whole new perspective on the mental side of running.

I don't know how many times I've pulled up for a long run with Toni and announced, "ugh, this run is going to suck." Or I've said it on the way to the run in my head. My stomach was upset, I couldn't find my ipod/GUs/handheld/favorite shorts, Garmin is dead, etc. YOU GET THE POINT. Guess how many of these runs were great ones? Zero. I set the intention that the run was going to suck, and guess what? It did.

A few weeks ago I had a long run with all the cards stacked against me.

• Toni was out of town, solo long run.
• 12 miles, longest long run in months.
• Feels like temp of 77 (at 5:15am) and 95% humidity.
• I couldn't find my Garmin (I had forgotten I decided to charge it as I was laying out my clothes).
• I forgot my iPod and turned around to go get it.
• In turning around to get my iPod I was late to the 5:15am group run, so I didn't get company for the first 2 ish miles like I had hoped.
• When I got to the meet up spot MY FREAKIN' IPOD WAS DEAD ANYWAY.

Despite all of those things, I tried to enforce positive self-talk:

• This will be such good mental training, to run solo, without distraction.
• This is basically two hours of moving meditation.
• I am so lucky to have two+ hours of time to run and not feel like I should be doing something else.
• The run will probably be challenging with the heat and humidity but long runs are supposed to be challenging, perfect. 

When the sun came up during the second half and I was really starting to feel toasted, I repeated in my head how thankful I was during the tiny moments of shade, especially during the last 2.5 miles where I was really out in the open. I put zero pressure on myself for an "appropriate" long run pace, and just opted to run by feel knowing that completing a 12 mile long run on a challenging day like that was a win enough.

And it was good. My pace during the second half of the run was a little faster than the first half of the run. The pace really wasn't much slower than my LR pace from this spring with Toni in much nicer conditions. I sweated my ass off, but the heat didn't kill me like it usually does. And I found myself singing some of my favorite songs in my head while miles ticked off.

Let me know if you have any other suggestions to further this goal, I know I have a lot of room for improvement and am excited to see how it translates further into race performances!

Mental Toughness W

It seems like we've yet to complete a long run that hasn't been on snowy icy roads. Oh wait, that's because we haven't. The roads/sidewalks/trails have been in varying conditions of #winter for all of February and we've just made the best of it.

During our 12 mile long run, I had the chips stacked against me. First of all, Toni was out of town, so I had to recruit a new running buddy. Secondly, I was teaching yoga in the morning, so I had to make sure that I hydrated and fueled properly so that I could run after it. And third we woke up to surprise snow. What's surprise snow? You might ask. Well that's 2-3 inches of sparkly powdery goodness that was on not a SINGLE G.D. WEATHER FORECAST. Surprise! It snowed.

I remained optimistic as I knew the sun would be out and it would be warm for the run. In fact prior to the surprise snow I had been counting down the hours to my long run because of how perfect the weather looked for the run. Finally I could have a strong long run! Surprise! g.d. it.

We decided to try the bike trail, hoping that it had a chance to melt off by 1pm. We jumped on and it was beautiful. Clear, melted, a little windier than I expected but it felt great. And that lasted for one half mile. And then we encountered the unplowed portion of the bike trail ie: the entire rest of the bike trail save for that singular half mile stretch. We stuck with it for about 3.5 miles, feeling like we were running on the beach in a Baywatch episode, except a lot more clothes and supportive chest gear.

We made a game time decision to deviate from the trail and head to some residential areas. My running buddy energizer bunnied ahead of me, taking us through some insane hills on the east side of town. And after we had hit our 4th one that also was snow covered, I was moments from a temper tantrum. We had a quick powwow and then opted to run toward the center of town to a residential area we were both familiar running in, hoping that at the very least we could run loops around the road.

Now let me remind you of a run a couple of months back when Toni and I were supposed to do speedwork at the track, and it was such a mess that I ran one mile and called it a night. Remember? It was one of my more proud running moments. Well since that point, I have had a bit of a come to Jesus moment with myself, vowing to become a bit of a stronger runner mentally. Taking a breath, a pause, and figuring out a solution before immediately jumping to a reaction. Sometimes my anxiety flares up in this way that it's just easier to quit and be done with it. I HATE that.


We had to run a giant hill to get to the area of town we were going to. And on many many unplowed sidewalks, and through giant frozen melted puddles of water through intersections. But when we got to where we were going, we could finally settle in, figure out some loops and get the run done. It took until mile SEVEN of this long run to actually enjoy running. That's a long damn time to be struggling and suffering. But when I realized this, while still running, I also realized that I had stuck with it and kept going. Which is not something Jeri from a few months ago would've done. And that's some progress to be proud of.