Strong in Mind You Must BE......

That's my mantra for today, a quote from the amazing Jedi Master Yoda. Strong in the mind.......It means so many different things. Today it meant you have to will yourself to get out of bed, even though your body is tired and telling you otherwise. Thank goodness I had that guilt factor of a training partner out there going to meet you for that 5am run. I had already screwed up once this week, and missed him on Monday, there was no way I could do that to him on Friday. I made the commitment, I have to mentally stay strong and get out there.

Today my legs just weren't ready for the days run. They felt heavy, and didn't want to go. The rest of my body....Didn't really care either way. I just knew that I set a goal, I MUST do my best to accomplish it. This is hard week #2 out of three. The remainder of the weekend and next week is going to be an absolute mental battle. I don't have a scheduled day off until next Friday. I may swap Wednesday for Friday, just because my legs will have gone 8 days in a row without a break at that point, making them go 10 could just be insanity. And I don't intend on messing up a speed workout session on Tuesday by taking that day off. Those are way too valuable. Anyways.....back to today's run. On the schedule I had just a 5 milers planned. The way I felt this morning, I really didn't want to go 5 feet. But, it was a nice bright morning with the full moon out, pretty much rendered my headlight useless. Not far from home, met up with Paul, and we started our planned run. Those thoughts of cutting it short kept dancing through my head. See how you feel at Safeway. Those inner daemons were playing havoc on me. We finally got to Safeway, and I absolutely didn't feel strong at all. But, I cussed myself out a bit for being a wuss, and that I could make it to the next street turn in. In between those two points, I started doing math in my head. When I started out the door today, I had a little over 18 miles officially in the books. So, to get to 45, it became apparent that I MUST get 5 miles in today. I really had to play those mind games to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. We got to the second shortening point, and I put the strength of my mind to keep on going. Passing that spot, there was no more shortening spot along the route. To get home, you have to get through it, and suck it up soldier! And suck it up I did. We made our final turn into the Sunflower retirement community, and it was the last homestretch to get back on home. In all, I ended up with 5.25 miles. Even better, the average split times were ALL UNDER 9 mins. For how I felt, I didn't think that was possible. I would have sworn we were running a 9:30 pace. Not so much...They were all around 8:40.


So, Jedi Master Yoda, you are correct, "Strong In Mind You Must BE!"

Train Hard and LIVESTRONG!