Now I know it’s doable I couldn’t fail on the second run. Amazingly my feet had recovered I was honestly expecting them to be a problem after the last run. Very much emphasised the importance of having a day between runs.
It’s fair to say none of these runs are easy but what I am finding is the nausea I would suffer towards the end of runs is not as severe.
I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on running look for hints and tips especially on the mental aspects of running. Specifically how the hell do you keep going when your body is telling you to stop.
My reasoning went, week 5 with the dreaded 20m run was less than 2 weeks away at this point. The physical aspects of running are certainly making positive changes in conditioning my body. But the reality has to be that this is going to be more of a mental challenge than physical. That is, I probably have a 20m or even 5k run in me right now, so why can’t I do it?
One of the talks I found very useful was the very new age sounding Ted Talk by Ned Philips entitled “How endurance athletes are using the power of the now”. Ned run’s ultra-marathons quite an inspirational story of how he got there.
Ignoring the fact it all sounds a little bit Zen, something about just focussing on doing the best next step you can sounded like something I could have a crack at. Rather than the current cycle of focussing on everything that hurts, how much time I have left and other random typically negative thoughts.
One of the mental tricks I had already realised was to not think about the time left (it’s difficult, especially at 2 min mark). Coupled with the idea of just focussing on the next step and trying to exclude any other thoughts. As Ned says it’s difficult but I really believe it’s helping, or at the very least the mental gymnastics is distracting enough to not notice the fatigue!
