4 miler on Wed ~ 50:24 ~ 12:36 pace (at least no turtles actually passed me)
3 miler on Thurs ~ 36:20 ~ I did this on the tread mill and tried to go out really slow (12:52) to warm up. I was pretty sore from the 4 or maybe from the 6.5 this weekend. Then I did about 1.6 miles in the middle at 11:30 pace which gave me new appreciation for all those faster types out there. Overall pace was something like 12:06. Felt faster :)
I ended it with some ice advice from Kate. http://katesmarathon.blogspot.com/ Thanks for the tips and encouragement. I only did a couple of packs on the sore spots but after the 7 miler, I plan on taking the plunge. I'm sure I'm going to need it.
5 comments:
Hi Nancy,
I saw your comment on Kate's site, and am here to give you encouragement. I too am training for my first marathon (in October to celebrate my 50Th birthday). After struggling for my entire adult life to get active something finally clicked and I have stuck to this. For me the big thing was setting VERY attainable goals so I had success to keep me motivated, and finally stopping the self abuse talk that was constantly going on in my head. In it's place I put lots of loving, patient postitive messages and it really helps. I agree with Kate that I will not call you a non-runner. You are out there, and you are showing up. How many people do you know that can't lay claim to that? They are your non-runners.
I am proud that you got up off the couch and are moving in the right direction. There are many paths one can take, some fast, some slow. There is no one right one and no one right way to reach your goal.
One more thing and I will let you go. The other day it took me 3 hours and 12 minutes to "run" 16 miles. Lots of "real runners" would think it an unacceptable, slow time for an entire marathon. So what? I actually had myself believeing that I was the superior one for being able to stay out there that long, and that they would die if they had to run that long of a time (very conveniently leaving out the whole pace piece and speed Vs stamina of course). It is all a matter of perspective. We all bring something special to the table and life would not be the feast it is if anything was left off the menu. Celebrate your specialness, and your accomplishments.
Thank you SO MUCH for coming by to give me encouragement. You are so sweet to do that. I am working on the self-talk. My tendencies are definitely towards the negative, but I do try to talk myself out of them. If you have advice about how you "finally stopped", I'm all ears :) A big congrats to you for getting active -- a 16 miler? I'd call that active. My body isn't there yet but I am working on it!
You are so kind for all the encouragement. I'd love to hear about and encourage your progress too!
Hi Nancy
You may want to check out coolrunning.com - They've got some good forum action going on with lots of advice and encouragement and about any topic you'd ever want. Keep up the good work!
Hi Nancy,
I agree with what Patty said as well. She is a great voice of encouragement! Negative self talk can be a HUGE deterant on meeting your goals. I strongly believe that running is 98% mental (or whatever percentage seems appropriate at the time!) and if that 98% is negative, well you can imagine how destructive that would be for your running. I struggle with this ALL the time. I have good days and I have bad days. On the bad days, I make sure to give myself a little hug and know it's going to be ok!
I also second what Amy mentioned about getting involved with some online communities of runners. I go to runnersworld.com a lot and find lots of encouragement from the beginners forum. There are so many other runners out there like you and me!
Have fun with your 7-miler tomorrow!
Was thinking about what advice I might offer and have to say it brought me back to my start. I was orphaned at age 8, and have no memories of the first 8 years of my life due to that trauma. What I do remember is being raised on negitive comments and put downs. Somewhere in my late twenties (already divorced once) I determined I would prove to myself that I deserved better. The first step was to practice the advice, 'If you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all." The next time someone paid me a compliment I choked back all of the regular put-down comments that would normally come out of my mouth and gasps out a quick, "Thank You" while turning beet red, and rushing away. After my heart rate returned to normal I congratulated myself and worked on convincing myself that wasn't so bad. From there it has been a twenty year journey, that has been sped up by my running successes. If you want more details go to my blog, neoblast.blogspot.com/ and read some of the really early posts. Until a few months ago when I added my running journal blog I talked about my changes, inside and out, in this blog.
One big thing I came to realize, and then put into practice, is I was really good at forgiving, supporting, encouraging, loving, others, but I really sucked when it came time to offer these things to myself. When I made a consious effort to treat myself like I treat others things really began to take off. Instead of always saying yes to others at the expense of saying no to myself I would flip this around from time to time, and this was key in ridding myself of those negative messages that had been playing since I was a child.
Rather than take up space on your comment section, if you would like to chat more you can e-mail me at neoblast@juno.com
Part of my life path has developed to include empowering women to love and value themselves, and I would be honored to help you find your way to strengthing this practice that you have started and seek to nurture and develop.
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