The Glass Half Full

...or Empty?

 

Which way do you see it? 

I look at last week's miles and I am kicking myself for not getting my Sunday evening run in. 
Don't worry.  The streak is at day 898.  I ran Sunday morning. 

 How do I know I didn't do it? 

 Well if I had I would have hit my 80+ miles for the week.

 

Does it matter when it comes to how I'll do/feel in my upcoming races? 

Mostly likely not. But like maybe many of you, I can let the numbers begin to mean more than they actually do.

It won't matter in the middle of my next race if I ran 77 or 82 miles this week but what will matter is whether or not I have conditioned my body enough to be able to handle the challenge.  That conditioning is created in part by "time on my feet" or simply running.  Often running a lot.  But it is also created by strengthening my body and my mind to want to complete the challenge of whatever race I am running. 

With that in mind I have been increasing my weekly mileage to condition my mind and body to be so familiar with a 10 mile run that running 30 or 50 will physically be less demanding.  Those increased weeks have also helped me mentally be able to continue running when, say I have had to run some of those long runs on a less than exciting treadmill. 

But what you might not know is that I have also been doing a bit of cross training.  I know it's a shocker!  I rarely talk about it and I don't log it on Daily Mile.  Mostly because I need to be accountable to myself before I start adding the stress, pressure, responsibility of being accountable to a wider audience.  But it all started with telling myself that every time I run I will cross train immediately after for the same number of minutes as the number of miles I ran.  Make sense?  Say last week when I got in a great 12 mile run on the TM then I hoped off, lifted and did core work for at least 12 minutes.  This morning I got in a quick 4 miles and then came back and did at least 4 minutes of cross training.  When I first started "making" myself do this there were a lot of days when I only did the exact number of minutes I had to but I did them.  Today I was happy to have a little extra workout to look forward to when I had to keep the miles low.  I can't really see a difference in my shape yet but during the Mega I could feel the difference a more powerful upper body created in being able to power up those extreme inclines. 

My glass, whether it's half empty or half full is definitely filled with a sweeter drink with my love of higher miles.  When my schedule or body tell me that I need to step back and lower that mileage, I won't see the glass as emptying only being filled with a different kind of sweetness. 

I raise my glass to 5 more sleeps and some seriously fit looking Fire on the Mountain Trail 50k race photos!

Need a little help seeing your glass as half full?  Don't forget to sign up for the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge.  Make sure to let Amanda at RuntotheFinish know that Shelly sent you!