Training: Delusions and Small Victories

My old pink shoes have finally been retired.

I had a good long, slow run last Saturday. I followed that up with a good, kind of fast tempo run on Tuesday: no lead legs, and slightly faster 2nd half of the tempo portion. It was fantastic, really. How often can I pull of long and slow and short and quick in the same week?

This, of course, filled me with delusions of athleticism, power and skill.

Of course, this convinced me that this Saturday’s run could only go one of two ways: invincibly well (superhero cape, anyone?) or gut-wrenchingly horrible.

As it turns out, it was neither. I wouldn’t say that I felt anything close to the same level of accomplishment that I felt in the other trainitwo runs, but it wasn’t demoralizing. I managed a negative split in spite of the fact that I lost my 4/1 run/walk ratio when I met up with the guy who stayed two steps ahead of me at all times in an effort to avoid being chicked. Naturally, that only made me want to speed up and pass him, or at least toy with him for a while. (Yes, I did pass him eventually after about a mile and a half of cat and mouse.)

I’ve also completed the transition to new running shoes. Over the past four weeks my old pink shoes have been gradually transitioned out and replaced with a black and white pair — same minimalist style, different color scheme. They worked well in this week’s long run. I’m so happy that I bought several pairs when they were on clearance.

Starting on Monday morning, I’ll be doing an online-guided boot camp. We’ll see if an online format meets my needs for accountability and motivation. The workouts dovetail nicely with the existing Team in Training calendar, and will hopefully provide me with a nice bridge to take me from training to post-race without the inevitable call of the couch. I’ll post more about this next week when I have a few workouts under my belt.

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2 Responses

  1. Greg O. says:

    Smart to buy multiple pairs on clearance. Sounds like that’s part of shoe manufacturers’ merchandising dreams: Get consumers to stock up before shoe make is discontinued.

  2. Alisa says:

    It probably IS some sort of tactic. But I got lucky and scored three clearance pairs under $30 each. What do I do next summer when I’m out of shoes? Oh, the horror of starting over and finding something new.

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