Running Fast Again

One of my goals for 2016 is to run a half marathon in 1 hour and 30 mins.

Yesterday I went for a training run. Before I headed out I had no real set plan.  I decided to put on some headphones and head out my front door and run to Woodward Park and just see what happened.  I put on my mp3 player, loaded up a Tool album, and took off running.

I've been feeling more focused lately, and more confident with my running.  In the last few weeks I've set a new 50k PR and during a 4 mile race I did on New Year's Day I ran a 5k PR during that event.

Before I headed out the door yesterday I thought to myself, "you should go for it today and run really fast for 90 mins."

The first 2 miles went well, and I was running just under a 7 min mile pace, and I was feeling comfortable, focused, and centered.

As the miles went by I was feeling more and more comfortable with my pace.  There wasn't anything on my mind, just the run.  I was 100% focused on my run.  By mile 6 I was right on pace to finish 13.1 miles within 90 mins.

At mile 8 a song by Tool came on called Lateralus.  There was one part of that song that stuck out to me...

With my feet upon the ground,
I move myeslf between the sounds,
And open wide to suck it in,
I feel it move across my skin,
I'm reaching up and reaching out,
I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me,
And following our will and wind,
We may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end,
And may just go where no one's been,
Spiral out... Keep going,
Spiral out... Keep going.

This stood out to me. I think the key lately for me has been to be more in the moment when I'm running.  I'm becoming more and more comfortable with being uncomfortable and just letting go. I'm no longer ignoring the discomfort, I'm embracing it, I'm not afraid of it anymore.  I'm also learning that if you focus on something hard enough you can make it happen, you just have to have a clear vision of what you want and visualize your goal.  But you have to be able to hold onto that vision, even when things aren't going the way you've planned.  It's easy to stick to a plan when things are going good, it's another thing to stick to that plan when things are going bad.

By the time I came upon mile 9 of my run I started really believing that I was going to finish this half marathon distance training run in 90 mins.  I started to visualize on finishing... I saw myself hitting the stop button on my watch and it reading 1 hour 30 mins.  I pictured myself running strong all the way to the end. I kept this image in my head the rest of the run.

My official half marathon pr is 1 hour, 35 mins, and a few seconds.  Yesterday I was able to head out my door and finish a 13.1 mile solo training run in 90 mins.  This has been a goal of mine for a long time.  I totally suprised myself yesterday.

I have big goals for this year.  I want to run AR50 within 8 hours and 30 mins and I want to finish Headlands 100 in under 26 hours.

To hit these goals I'm going to train hard, eat right, and visualize myself making these goals.

Until next time...

KEEP RUNNING!!!!