The voice within

After yesterday's incredibly crabby, irritable, frustrated state of mind (trust me, my entire family was ready to throw me out the door), I was able to get a decent night's sleep followed by a hot bath at 6 am to relieve a terrible tension headache before feeling ready to conquer Friday.

Part of the crabbiness was seriously brought on by this inner voice telling me to train harder, work more, get faster.  Here's the struggle...I add pressure to myself by setting a goal that's just barely within reach with the assumption that I will attain it if I just work hard enough.  Problem is LIFE.  I'm a mother of 2 pre-teen/teenagers and a newly adopted 19 month old.  My life is crazy busy, but who's isn't?!  Training already consumes so much of my time, add to that an intense desire to run harder/faster, and the pressure makes my head spin out of control.  Balance. Balance is the key.  I felt that I needed to run 16 miles of the race course this morning....but others were running with me for parts, didn't get a chance to drop off water bottles yesterday, had time constraints, couldn't figure out where to park and meet people, etc.  This was becoming too all consuming, and that's not what I wanted to have happen.

I was running alone by mile 6 and at peace with my thoughts. I needed this moment.  Needed to push through some inner thoughts that were driving me insane.  My mind was racing, and apparently, so was I.   There was a physical and mental comfort flowing by mile 7,  didn't even realize the 8:15 min/mile pace on this so-called taper run.  I guess that's good.  Good to be in a place where the legs are turning steadily, the mind is busy and distracted, the aches and pains are subdued, and all is quiet.  With the occasional runner going by, I was running solo surrounded by nature.  Miles 10-14 went by quickly and without a hitch.

Can't believe how much stronger I feel this time around in comparison to just 5 months ago.  This will be marathon number 3 (besides the two 1/2 marathons, 8 & 5 mile race and a 5K) in the past 5 months, the first of the three was a Boston qualifier.  This time I've added much more weight lifting/core work -- what a difference!

Miles 14-16 made me hurt.  In an attempt to run the last two at a faster pace, I felt the burn in the hip flexors and knees (oops, that may have been due to the 7:40 pace), so took it down to an 8 min/mi and that did the trick.  Finished with a sprint, then cool down jog to my car.  Good finish.  Feel ready to race.  Inner struggle has been tackled.

I will run because I love to run, that's just what I do.  Call me Forest Gump, I just like to run.  :)

I will not set for myself a goal that's barely attainable because that's not where I'm at.  I don't want to push so hard that I end up on the sidelines or lose those around me.  I want to run carefree, run like the wind, run because I enjoy it.  If I set a PR,  then that will just be the icing on the cake and it will simply be because I trained so hard.  No more struggle, no more pressure, no, no, no.  Trust me, I will run harder than I've done before, I will attempt to pass every woman that appears to be in my age group, I will lay it all out there---that's the competitive drive within that I can't rid myself of.