An Exercise in Mental Toughness

So the plan last night called for a 6 mile run at whatever pace I wanted. I felt pretty good, so I thought I'd run the majority of the six miles (on the treadmill, of course) at a 10 minute mile pace. Based on a treadmill pace conversion chart, this equates to a 9:52 mile since I've got the incline set to 1%. Shouldn't be a problem, I thought. I'm 8 weeks into my training plan; I should be able to do that no problem. Just throw on my iPod, shuffle some tunes and grind through.

This is where my plan started to go wrong. Let me start by saying that I normally don't do warm up or cool down. I know it would probably help me out In the long run if I did, but on the treadmill I like to set it and forget it. So I set the mill for 6.0 mph start up the iPod and start running. About 2 minutes in, my iPod cuts out. I look down and see the apple logo. Great. Ok, aparently it decided to reset itself for some reason. So I took it off my arm and attempted to get Nike+ started again. Having risked being thrownto the ground as I tried to run and futz with said iPod a the same time, I got it working and continued on. A couple minutes later it does it again. Frustrated at this point, I take the iPod off and toss it aside. (Throughout the run I would glance down at it from time to time and it was continuing to cycle through resets.)

At this point I'm only about a half mile in and could have stopped, thrown in a DVD and been set. Unfortunately once I start I don't like to stop until done. Fine, I decided. Mental toughness run. 6 miles on the treadmill, music, no DVD, just me, my head and my legs. Yeah, about that.

About a mile in I started having pain in my lower legs again. Not just on the inside of the right leg, but along the shin on my left leg as well. Great! The pain wasn't bad, more of a distraction, but it did have me worried a bit. Was I pushing too much? Too far too fast? Gut it out and we'll see where this goes, I said. Expect some pain in the marathon, this will be good practice for getting through it. Pain is just weakness leaving the body. Strangely enough, the pain (discomfort?) came and went. By the end of the run it was all good. This is an encouraging sign.

Normally during the course of a run in which pushing a bit and I get to the last mile I tell myself "Ten more minutes. You can do anything for ten minutes." Last night it was "20 minutes..15 minutes...10 minutes, well you get the idea.

And I did it. 6 miles@6 mph with a 1% incline. I'd say that's not too bad, especialy considering all I had to watch was the progress around the simulated track on the treadmill.

We'll see how tonight (an EASY) 3 miler goes. And then it's 13 on Sunday. That's pretty much the farthest I've ever run, so it will be interesting. I really hope Yoda's not dead. Oh, that's my iPod name, btw. Becuase it's green, and small, and awesome. I tried to restore it this morning before work and couldn't get it to restore. I'll try some more stuff tonight and tomorrow. Sunday will be long and cold without my Jedi Master along for the run.