Dear Running: Training and FEAR.

Dear Running,

If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is there to hear it - does it make a sound?  Similarly, if we spend a week training together but I DO NOT blog about it...did it really happen?

The answer is......yes!

Running, I'm not gonna lie, the main reason you and I are so consistent while I am training for a race is for one reason and one reason only.

FEAR.

My LEAST FAVORITE feeling on earth is being unprepared.  (Okay, that and not being able to find something I put in a REALLY safe place...).   Being unprepared is a feeling that I have experienced several times in my life and every time it has happened I have sworn to myself that I would never let it happen again.

Example: early on in my career as a fitness instructor I ended up teaching a class which I had not totally reviewed the choreography for and I drew a total blank.  I will never forget the feeling of having no idea what was coming next and knowing that if I had just spent a  little bit more time preparing for the class, the situation would have been COMPLETELY avoidable. It was embarrassing and I felt sick inside.

Running, I have absolute confidence that if we never miss a training run and if I stick to my schedule perfectly that we will be ready to run our Marathon together in October.  This is probably naive because of all the unforeseen circumstances that could arise, but I still believe it.

Similarly,  I have the incredibly distorted thought process that if I even fall of schedule once or miss one training run that I will not be ready and I will fail.  I realize this is totally irrational, however, it is what drives me to run on my treadmill at 11PM on a busy day just to get the check mark on my calendar OR to teach 2 hours of aerobics in one day AND get my training run in, just so I know I've gotten in the mileage.

Which brings me to this week.

Every 3 months at the gym I have a VERY heavy workout week.  It's called release week and I end up having to do a lot of aerobics and weight training.  Most of it is practice, but I still need to actually do the workouts in order to be prepared, so I end up spending a lot of time in my runners.

Our training schedule for the week looked like this.  Luckily it was a bit of a lighter week this week so I was able to make it all work.

Sunday - REST DAY
Monday -  Run 5 Miles
Tuesday - Weight Training
Wednesday - Run 4 Miles with 8x100m sprints
Thursday - Weight Training
Friday - 6 Miles
Saturday - REST DAY

Because of all the extra teaching/practice I had to do this week I ended up moving some of the workouts around but I still managed to get them all checked off and teach a BUNCH of classes!  PHEW!

Next week our mileage builds up again.  I'm looking forward to not having to worry about all the extra teaching.  I do have a few classes lined up to participate in next week but I will have no problem getting those done and the running.

WEEK 4 of the program starts next week!

It's getting closer....we can do this!

Becka
XXOO