And the ride continues..

Crossfit is an emotional rollercoaster, and I believe that between my drive to be a better overall athlete and my bucket list goal to complete a half marathon, I will be riding the coaster for quite a bit longer.

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Prior to my competition last Saturday, my prior two Saturdays started off with miserable training runs, where I could not even run a mile without having to stop to walk, or stretch, or whine or complain. I was frustrated, upset, and miserable and have spent a lot of my running time crying.. With each passing weekend marking a week closer to my scheduled half marathon, If I continue on with the negativity and self-doubt, I can only imagine I am setting myself up for a miserable future in training.

While I am not technically following any strict training schedule, the plan has been to add total length of time for my runs each weekend so as my last run was 45 minutes, I expected that this weekend I would “run” for an hour. My Coach told me rather than running for an hour, aim for my 6-mile goal instead, which would be my second longest run I have done since June, and only the fourth time ever these legs have run six miles, including my Turkey Trot in November, Shamrock ‘n Roll in March, and the Kona Run in June.

As I was anticipating mental struggles, I searched for some motivation and found this quote on Pinterest; I decided to use it as my mantra for this run:

Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired.” – George S. Patton

This is the last training run that is a distance that I have previously run; so going forward the upcoming weeks will surpass my current mileage maximum and I am going to be pushed even further mentally and physically than I ever had before.

I woke up Saturday morning with the same grumbling at the alarm clock as usual, but instead of going into the run thinking how miserable it was going to be, I made the focus on being optimistic and leaving no room for negative self-talk. I started with the run with a fellow running-struggler, who like me, often lets the mental part of running and Crossfit get in her way. We are working on it. 🙂

I have talked about the #twomilesuck that I have felt quite often lately, but I was feeling almost comfortable in the first two miles. I was running slowly, but things were feeling.. hmm.. good. Rather than listening to music which sometimes gets in the way of my pacing, I played the Girls Gone WOD podcasts (download ASAP if you are not listening to Claire and Joy yet!).

I focused on their words instead of focusing on anything else and I kept running, almost anticipating the suck. But I let go of some of the frustrations and discouragement and just ran, not really considering pace or time; the goal was just to get 6 miles in any way, shape, or form of moving. I’d crawl those 6 miles if I had to.

But I didn’t have to crawl.

I did end up taking a walk break at the 3 mile turnaround point, and then during that third mile, I walked a little more up some hills, but rather than letting the walking discourage me, I just continued to run what I could run and survived six miles.

My goal for the upcoming weeks is not to focus on time, but focus on hitting my mileage and learning to make peace with the running. Stressing out every training run is not going to make me any better of an athlete nor will it make me any stronger mentally. I am not saying that I did not have any negative thoughts at all during this run, nor was it completely comfortably by any means, but compared to the last 8 weeks of training, it was the first time I actually felt content.

Because I cannot completely distance myself from checking stats, I compared my run to the last 10ks that I have completed.

And saw noticeable progress. Not only was it my fastest six-mile pace, I also had negative splits (with the exception of my walking turnaround), with the first mile at 11:37 pace, and ending at a 10:10 pace.

This upcoming weekend I have another Crossfit competition so likely will skip my long run, but the following weekend will likely be the longest run for me ever in life, so know I need to prepare mentally. I am hoping if I go into it with an optimistic attitude as I have this week, it will keep me focused on my goal of finishing a half marathon in October!

Your turn..
Do you feel your fitness lifestyle is a roller-coaster?
Have you tried to balance two sports at once?
What do you listen to when you run?
What’s your favorite podcast?