Mothers Day Classic

Hey thanks for all the feedback last week and glad to hear there are more of you getting out there and pounding the pavement in the name of a good cause - you can achieve heaps in 7 weeks in time for Mother’s Day Classic. My plan is to replace a few kilos from under my belt with a few km!

What is with the heat over the last couple of weeks!?? I don’t know about everyone else but it certainly effected me and my training – in fact the weekend that it was at it’s hottest, I couldn’t even run two thirds of my normal course and the walk home was a very long and hot one! And I just couldn’t seem to get re-hydrated enough before my next run – I am sure there is a means of doing this besides just drinking water but as an amateur I don’t know it and so just kept finding myself with a dry mouth and feeling terrible on each run (it felt like I was running with a hangover). On the hottest of the hot days when it was still 38degrees after work, my friend and I decided it was definitely too hot to run and so we walked 3km to the beach and had an evening swim and then walked home again – was so nice for a change and allowed us to still do some exercise.

At the best of times, running for me is a constant mind-game. I spend the entire time making sure that my iPod is loud enough that I can’t hear my feet pounding the pavement, or my breath straining as I go up the slightest hill. I am continuously trying to tell myself that the feeling that my legs are made of cement, that my shoe is rubbing or my calf is hurting, will all pass. I am constantly looking for excuses to stop and walk so I have to set myself short goals to keep myself going – “just run to the next street corner”, “just keep going another 5mins”, “you can definitely make to at least x as you did last time” – and when I succeed with these goals I set myself more short goals until I make it home. The mental game is often more exhausting than the physical one! But I have to say that in the hot weather I just could not win the mind-games. The heat certainly took sides with my mind, and my body gave up the fight and was happy to walk… Disappointing but I didn’t want to be like one of those marathon runners who has a muscle meltdown mid race (I know, I know – I am far from getting myself to that point especially on a 10km plod! But hey, try telling my mind that mid hot run!). Now that it has cooled down again I am back on track and some mornings I actually really feeling like going for a run (this is amazing for me!). In fact I am finding less and less excuses not to go for a run – so the pre-run mind-games are getting easier and now I just have to master the mid-run mind-games.

Until next time, may the weather stay cool and the mind-games winnable!