![\"My](\"http:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/atb.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt has been a busy few months preparing for this one. \u00a0In a period of two and a half months the following has happened:<\/p>\n
- \n
- surgery to try to fix my previously dislocated finger<\/li>\n
- various appointments because of the above<\/li>\n
- 4 to 6 hours a week for I-don’t-know-how-many-weeks-now because of a “frozen shoulder” or adhesive capsulitis<\/li>\n
- two sets of report cards, one set of parent\/teacher interviews<\/li>\n
- an Ottawa winter, including a snowstorm that dumped 50+ cm of snow in 24 hours<\/li>\n
- the general life\/work\/run balance that we all juggle<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I found myself slipping in the positive attitude department. \u00a0Maybe it was the winter weather. \u00a0Maybe it was fatigue. \u00a0Maybe I was just too damn hard on myself. \u00a0I often felt like I was making little or no progress. \u00a0I also felt frustrated with the fact that so many people I know run quickly\u00a0with less training. \u00a0It was like I was working hard with no reward. \u00a0Things that were going through my mind included:<\/p>\n
- \n
- “I am working harder and getting slower.”<\/li>\n
- “I should be getting more mileage in.”<\/li>\n
- “I should be running more mid-distance runs but don’t have time.”<\/li>\n
- “Damn my G.I. system!!!”<\/li>\n
- “My shoulder hurts. All. The. Time.”<\/li>\n
- “My longest run should have been more than 27k”<\/li>\n
- “I should have done more hill work.”<\/li>\n
- “I think my age is starting to show in my running, maybe I am past getting P.B’s”<\/li>\n
- “I can’t even run a half marathon in a reasonable speed.” \u00a0(This was during the Hypo Half a couple of weeks ago.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
With all this nonsense playing like a broken record in my mind, it was pretty difficult to get excited for Around the Bay.<\/p>\n
Last week I decided to change my thought patterns. \u00a0Instead of the thoughts above, I started paying attention to these facts:<\/p>\n
- \n
- I compared my long runs this training session to when I did ATB in 2014. \u00a0If I counted runs of 15k and longer and totaled them, I ran 76 more “long run kms” this time around.<\/li>\n
- My long run pace was similar to my long run paces in 2014, not slower like I thought.<\/li>\n
- My last two long runs I picked up the pace a bit. \u00a0In fact, my 27k run was done only one second slower per km than my race pace from 2014’s ATB.<\/li>\n
- A few days ago I ran 3k at a 5:02 pace – slightly under my personal best 5k pace.<\/li>\n
- Yesterday I did 5k of rolling hills at about 25 seconds per km faster than I plan on running ATB.<\/li>\n
- Today I did 10k just under my hoped-for race pace.<\/li>\n
- I seem to be recovering well after each run. \u00a0In fact, that 3k fast pace was the day after my 26k long run and my legs felt great.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
By thinking about the above, my mindset is changing. \u00a0The fact is I am capable of\u00a0improving my last ATB time if things out of my control go well. \u00a0The biggest factor is of course weather. \u00a0I can’t tell you how happy I would be if there is no wind in Hamilton on April 3rd. \u00a0I still have memories of fighting ridiculously strong wind gusts for much of my marathon in the fall. \u00a0I can fight it for a while but it obviously takes its toll.<\/p>\n
A big issue for me is the G.I. issues. \u00a0If you are a runner you know what I mean. \u00a0My intestines hate distance running and cost me several minutes at a couple of outhouses during the Road2Hope Marathon in the fall. \u00a0Those minutes in turn cost me my goal of a sub 4:30 marathon (final time of 4:34). \u00a0There seems to be only so much I can do about this and so I am letting go of stressing about it. \u00a0Instead I have a plan. \u00a0This time my watch will be stopped if I have to use those lovely portable facilities at any time on the course. \u00a0To hell with chip time, I am just going count running time. \u00a0 Let’s call it non-porta potty time.<\/p>\n
So let the taper begin. \u00a0I’m not antsy yet, but probably will be in a few days. \u00a0Every ache and pain feels like a major injury now, just like what always happens in the days before a race. \u00a0I am obsessively washing my hands in the hopes of not getting sick like I did before the marathon. \u00a0Other than that, there is not much I can do at this stage other than to hold on to those positive thoughts listed above! (I confess I may go back and read the list daily).<\/p>\n
Happy running!<\/p>\n
Follow me on Twitter @AverageRunnerK\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am in taper mode now. \u00a0The hardest workouts are behind me and in a week and a half I will be running my second Around the Bay 30k race in Hamilton. It has been a busy few months preparing for this one. \u00a0In a period of two and a half months the following has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3amQ2-wv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2015"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2017,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions\/2017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}