~Set peace of mind as your highest goal, and organize your life around it.
Brian Tracy
So to start things off… My regular routine for the day is I get up at around 4:45 am, I get my son up with me and I walk him down to my mom & dads house to get back in the bed. Because they only live a few steps from my house this is extremely convenient for me… I then head up the road for my run…
The reason I am giving details for all this is because since I am a single mother and I do manage to raise my child as well as manage my job, running, and workouts I get alot of hateful remarks of jealousy from people, or people just question how I do what I do… And the only thing I think I can actually say is I am blessed with a good family to help me with achieving my dreams and then again I have worked in dentistry for nearly 10 years and I have learned to multitask EVERYTHING! And my theory on life is you will prioritize your life for what you truely want no matter what that may be… And at least I can say I am trying to set my son a good example. But essentially my running is what gives me peace in my life… I tell people it is like my prozak! When I run I brainstorm. I plan my day ahead, I invision my goals, I pray, and some of my best ideas have happened on my runs…
So this morning my run was extremely peaceful… It was so nice and cool outside. It reminded me of my last marathon season when I had no injuries and I felt bulletproof. Although I did pay close attention to my foot strike which my coach has instructed me to do, so I won’t end up in the same place I did last time. My pace was good, I was able to go faster of course since the air was fresh and not so humid and unbearable, but I didn’t want to go too hard just yet… My plan is to go at this easy pace throughout the rest of this week and then through next week then I will begin incorporating my speed sessions in at week 4 and thats when the fun really begins…
Like last year,speedwork was so much fun for me… I had worked up to doing mile repeats and had gotten to doing 3 x 1 mile repeats and then I remember the day I made my BIG mistake!!! I was taught that you shouldn’t switch out your shoes during your training very often, for me especially with the issues I have on my left leg… Anyways, I had gotten my speed down so low on that track that I said to myself hey I’m sure if I wear some lighter shoes I would be even faster. So there I go switching my shoes out from the more stability shoes which is so much better for my training to the more minimal shoes for my track work that day… My leg didn’t seem to bother me after that session so the next day I kicked out a 4 mile FAST tempo run on my lunch break, then on Sunday I had my last long run for the season which was 23 miles and you probably know the story from here… So the moral of this story is to pay attention to your shoes, and don’t be STUPID like I was and overtrain! Because speedwork it is fun but it is dangerous on us runners especially when we are putting our bodies through the training it takes to run a marathon with such long runs involved…
