Pep Talking

I'm unreasonably worried about Saturday's run.

Normally, I can put these kinds of things out of my mind, but I am genuinely concerned. Over the last few weeks, I've been allowing myself to take walking breaks and cut miles as a result of the heat, or so I've told myself. It is equally possible that I have simply overtrained myself once again and that my recent slowdown is indicative of more than a change in temperature.

So, in order to convince myself that I'm going to be okay, I've got to review the following facts.

1) I'm going to end up running about 44 miles this week, which is just as many as I ran a few weeks ago. Overall, I'm not running any further in a seven-day period than I have in very recent memory.

2) Last week was a step-back week (even more so that it was supposed to be), so my body is actually more rested than Hal intended it to be when someone got to this point of his training program.

3) I've already had three great runs this week, including the fastest I've had this season. Even though I had a little muscle soreness when I woke up this morning, I feel pretty good after the 13 I completed yesterday, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's five.

4) After this week, I start my taper, so this will be the hardest week I have left. And since I don't have to run at all on Sunday, there's no reason why I should not give my all on Saturday.

The key to success, I feel, will be getting up at a completely unreasonable hour. I need to be done with my run before 9:00 am, which means that I've got to be on the road before 6. I may not get very much sleep on Friday night as a result, but this may be some good prep for race day. The night before Austin, I was so nervous about oversleeping that I didn't get much rest at all. If I can run 20 on Saturday after a short night's sleep, I'll be good to go three weeks later.

I don't want to look past tomorrow, when I'm scheduled for a pace run, but it's tough to worry about the foothill as you approach the mountain. It is very important to me that Saturday goes well, and it will be critical that I remind myself that I can do it. Every time I have asked something of my body, it has responded, and now I need it more than ever. A little self pep-talking goes a long way.

A long, long way.