It's all in my head
I went out to Todd's Road Saturday and I was very excited to show off my Valentine's Day present from Gary, a blinking arm band that also has a zipper pocket! I love it. However it was completely unnecessary because of the blinding white snow on the ground. Wednesday I did ran twice, once in the morning and once in the evening. Both times I wore shorts since it was near 60 degrees. Saturday morning was a different story. I was glad to have a group to be running with.
The group I run planned on doing anywhere between 9 and 16. I wanted to do about 10, and I somehow started out in the front of the pack with the quick ones, Jason and Kristen. We immediately broke away from the rest of the group and I kept looking back thinking, maybe I should run with the rest of them. Then I got to talking and before I realized it the rest of the group was almost out of eyesight. We were doing an out and back so I figured if they ran me into the ground I could always wait at the halfway and run back with the rest of them. As we kept running I was hurting a bit because it was quicker than my normal pace, but I still felt strong. I tried to tell myself that it was all in my head, and that I am easily keeping up.
We got to the point where we turn around and I decided that I was tired, but I could finish the second half with them. We turned around to find ourselves running into a very strong head wind with the snow pelting our frozen faces. It was pretty miserable. Every time we turned a corner and thought we were out of the wind it would seem to follow us. The whole way back the snow beat at our faces. Jason was wearing an ear warmer and his hair and eyebrows collected a white frosty coat of frozen snow. My eyelashes collected so much snow that by the time we got to the clubhouse my lower lashes and upper lashes were frozen together by a coat of ice. I had to squint through it to see the road. I was very glad to be back to the clubhouse to coffee and a doughnut.
During my run and afterwards I got to thinking about how much my mind plays into my performance. I have always been a head case when it comes to sports. Worrying, overanalyzing, planning, and evaluating. I started thinking that my mind might be my limiting factor. Everything I have studied in school has taught me about VO2 max, and anaerobic threshold, and all the physiological factors that play into performance. I am not saying that these do not apply to me, but I think that athletes have to take into consideration the power of the mind.
I ran planned on running 10 yesterday. I told myself that I was going to take it easy since the run with Jason and Kristen was pretty intese the day before. However, I started running, and was able to keep a pretty quick pace throughout. I was surprised to get to mile 8 to see that I still had quite a bit of time to finish the last 2 miles, so I ended up running more than I expected, and my spilts were faster than they had ever been when training for the Tecumseh. It felt so good to have run so strong on both Saturday and Sunday. I really believe that the run on Saturday gave me the confidence to run well on Sunday. I tend to obsess about my pace, and get really down on myself when I am not running as fast as I would like to be. When these negative thoughts creep into my head the downward spiral begins. I am so slow...How come I never get any faster?...I am barely keeping up with this group...I can't breathe!...I can't do it... Then I start to think about how my body is feeling, how much my legs hurt, how hard I am breathing. I start focusing on all of the negative things until I have reduced myself into a worthless, slower than sludge, pained runner.
The opposite occurs when I feel like I am running at a quick pace. I feel on top of the world, like I could run for 3 more hours, and the pain although pretty bad sometimes, is not as severe as when I am put putting along in my "negative" running zone. I know how to train my body to perform better, so now I am going to try to conquer the idea of training my mind.
The group I run planned on doing anywhere between 9 and 16. I wanted to do about 10, and I somehow started out in the front of the pack with the quick ones, Jason and Kristen. We immediately broke away from the rest of the group and I kept looking back thinking, maybe I should run with the rest of them. Then I got to talking and before I realized it the rest of the group was almost out of eyesight. We were doing an out and back so I figured if they ran me into the ground I could always wait at the halfway and run back with the rest of them. As we kept running I was hurting a bit because it was quicker than my normal pace, but I still felt strong. I tried to tell myself that it was all in my head, and that I am easily keeping up.
We got to the point where we turn around and I decided that I was tired, but I could finish the second half with them. We turned around to find ourselves running into a very strong head wind with the snow pelting our frozen faces. It was pretty miserable. Every time we turned a corner and thought we were out of the wind it would seem to follow us. The whole way back the snow beat at our faces. Jason was wearing an ear warmer and his hair and eyebrows collected a white frosty coat of frozen snow. My eyelashes collected so much snow that by the time we got to the clubhouse my lower lashes and upper lashes were frozen together by a coat of ice. I had to squint through it to see the road. I was very glad to be back to the clubhouse to coffee and a doughnut.
During my run and afterwards I got to thinking about how much my mind plays into my performance. I have always been a head case when it comes to sports. Worrying, overanalyzing, planning, and evaluating. I started thinking that my mind might be my limiting factor. Everything I have studied in school has taught me about VO2 max, and anaerobic threshold, and all the physiological factors that play into performance. I am not saying that these do not apply to me, but I think that athletes have to take into consideration the power of the mind.
I ran planned on running 10 yesterday. I told myself that I was going to take it easy since the run with Jason and Kristen was pretty intese the day before. However, I started running, and was able to keep a pretty quick pace throughout. I was surprised to get to mile 8 to see that I still had quite a bit of time to finish the last 2 miles, so I ended up running more than I expected, and my spilts were faster than they had ever been when training for the Tecumseh. It felt so good to have run so strong on both Saturday and Sunday. I really believe that the run on Saturday gave me the confidence to run well on Sunday. I tend to obsess about my pace, and get really down on myself when I am not running as fast as I would like to be. When these negative thoughts creep into my head the downward spiral begins. I am so slow...How come I never get any faster?...I am barely keeping up with this group...I can't breathe!...I can't do it... Then I start to think about how my body is feeling, how much my legs hurt, how hard I am breathing. I start focusing on all of the negative things until I have reduced myself into a worthless, slower than sludge, pained runner.
The opposite occurs when I feel like I am running at a quick pace. I feel on top of the world, like I could run for 3 more hours, and the pain although pretty bad sometimes, is not as severe as when I am put putting along in my "negative" running zone. I know how to train my body to perform better, so now I am going to try to conquer the idea of training my mind.
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