The past few weeks have shown me how we are ever adapting in who we are as runners as in life. Although I am not as fast as I was two years ago; mentally I am a WAY stronger runner! In the past couple weeks during my long runs I have reflected frequently on my goal for a sub 2 hour half marathon. I know that physically it was a completely feasible feat yet, each race I would miss and by miss I mean by a small margin. Example: Intact Derby 2:02:01 and the Big Run 2:02:41. Now take into consideration the Big Run is hilly! One of the hills has something to do with blood, sweat and vomit. Now, Intact Derby is known as super fast and flat. How you can have 2 races so different from each other yet end up with results 40 seconds apart? Answer: Mental self sabotage that is how! Which brings me forward to now!!! My goal from the beginning was to ensure that mentally I was better prepared for this full marathon. My goal and focus for my training distances isn't about adapting my body to the mileage but my mental preparedness to those miles. Thankfully this has created the gear shift I needed. When the thoughts are creeping into my head that I am close to make a PB but "my legs hurt" and "oh I will probably just miss it" is replaced with " we got this!, "do not let yourself down", and voilà I have been consistently getting PB's each and every week. These are not lifetime PB's "yet" but they are definitely my new returning to running PB's and at the end of the day a win is a win!
I created a vision board awhile back as a tool to focus on my upcoming goals in 2012. Well pulling out the cut-outs that I had been collecting in an envelope the following 2 pictures came out together almost exactly as shown. What an amazing motto for my upcoming "Big Sur" marathon!
