More mental then physical.

My friend Katie and I have been training together for the Mini Marathon that is in 13 days. The total training program we are following is 15 weeks long. So, you can imagine the excitement when we start realizing that we are almost done with the training! However, you can also imagine the mental and physical fatigue that we are feeling, as well.

I was out late last night, and I only had 4 hours of sleep. Though, I was not too concerned about that since I am typically okay on the run even if I did not get much sleep the night before due to adrenaline; plus, I did get 8 hours of sleep the night before that, which was great and rare. I woke up rather tired, but I rolled my body out of bed. Actually, I ate a Double Chocolate Crisp Harvest Energy Power Bar while still in my bed. (It was fantastic, by the way! Oh, I wonder if I dropped any little chocolate chips on my sheets...) Then, I rolled out of bed, put on my running clothes, got my other things together, and hit the road.

I met up with Katie at our church at 7:30 am to run our final long run before the big day -- a whopping 12 miles! That is 1.1 miles less than the race day run. So, you can imagine how great it feels to complete this distance 13 days before the big day! Well, we ended up not running 12 miles today, and here is why...

If you are from the area, you are aware that we are having some scattered storms today. This morning, it was raining a bit when we met to set out on the run, and neither of us were very happy about that. Think about being wet for 12 miles. That would be about 2 hours. YUCK! Plus, neither of us were mentally prepared for this, and you HAVE to be mentally prepared to run a long distance, which is anything over 3.1 miles in my opinion.

And so... We set out to run whatever we decided to run. Talk about having some FREEDOM! Training for me is always about trying to do "at least as good as" I did the last time I ran a similar or the same distance and running that exact distance the exact number of times suggested that week, which is only made possible via my handy dandy Garmin Forerunner 305. Training is very regimented for me. So, yeah... I was very nice to NOT be following the schedule for a day! :)

The funny thing is that we actually ended up running 5 miles, which is our normal weekly run (5 miles x2 during the week + the long run on Friday or Saturday). Since we had not chatted much the past few weeks due to the fact that you just cannot talk and run race pace over 10 miles, I decided that today would be a good day to chat and run and not worry about a time for once. So, I talked the WHOLE time. Seriously, I think I did not talk for about a half of a mile of the 5 miles. Katie loved it, too! :)

And so... You would think our pace was terrible if I was talking the whole time, but it was not! Nope, we rocked it!! We ran a 9:35 min/mile pace over 5 miles. :) To put that into perspective, that was what I ran about two weeks ago when I was killing myself. WOW! It is amazing what a few days of rest and a mental break can do for you!

But don't you worry... We will be running 12 miles. Thursday. 7 am. Care to join us?

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"Running is 90% mental. The other half is physical."