Except for mile repeats, I am generally jazzed about speed work. When I got on the treadmill this morning, I was all "Oh yay it's just eight 800m repeats this will go by SO FAST." At least that's what I thought during the mile warm-up. I was a little less optimistic after the first repeat, and by the third repeat my mental mantra was "MY GOD I WILL NEVER DO ALL 8 OF THESE" rather than "No sweat! 8 by 800 is great!"
But I kept on trudging through those repeats at warp speed, wondering what the heck my problem was this morning. It wasn't until the 6th repeat that I realized the cause of my mental anguish:
I had the sound turned down on my headphones.
Now, I know what you're thinking--that I'm an idiot and you should click away from this blog forever. But before you get all clickity-click happy, let me tell you why that was the cause of my speed work issues this morning. You see, by turning the sound down on my musical motivation, I could now hear my crazy breathing whilst running at warp speed. This made me think that I couldn't run at warp speed, that I would therefore never make it through all the repeats, hence I suck, and as a direct consequence my marathon is doomed.
As you can see, I spiral down pretty far pretty quickly when I decide to mentally sabotage myself, which is exactly what I did this morning. What's good about it is that I pushed through and finished the workout, which became a bit easier once I cranked up my headphones and could no longer hear the extent of my own suffering.
However, the suffering I had just endured was pretty evident post-workout.
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| The suffering is that dark purple color on my shirt. |
After thinking about my mental sabotage this morning, I began to think about other ways I I like to sabotage a run or a race, sometimes even before it begins. Here are some of my more common tactics:
1) Heat. If I check the weather and see if the temps for the race will be unusually warm, my race is pretty much done at that point. This is because I am a moron. If I don't check the weather and just deal with the temps as they come, I am much better off (Example: my recent Chicago marathon performance).
2) Bike envy. Obviously, this applies to when I get my duathlon on. As soon as I am in the bike transition area I start looking at all the other, newer, more awesome bikes in there...and then I start thinking they are all faster than my bike so I should just take my crappy little bike and go home. But I never do because I know the hubbs will mock me if I do that and the animals will shoot me looks of disdain for the rest of the day.
3) Assuming every person at a race is faster than me. I do this without realizing it at almost every race, and I can't seem to break this habit. It really gets me down at the start of a race; the good thing is this quickly dissipates once the race starts because then I actually get to pass some of these people.
4) Cold. This is the exact opposite of #1, in case you didn't know. I become convinced that really low temperatures will cause me to suck and tank a run or a race. Well, at least tank it before I freeze to death on the course.
5) Judgmental cats. They never believe in you. They only want you to fail. And then feed them.
All I have to say is that it's a good thing I have some antidotes for my mental sabotage techniques. And some of you might feel that it's a good thing that this post is over now.
Stop--Learning time:
- I love speed work. Really, I do.
- I also love it when I suck it up, buttercup, and get the workout done.
- What can I say-mentally, I'm a mess when it comes to running sometimes. But I always get out there and see what I'm made of, even if what I'm mostly made of is "wimp."
- I kept falling asleep during this post because work has been wringing all the energy right out of me.
- The cat does not accept my "falling asleep" excuse. Ever. Because cats are jerks.
Tomorrow's workout: Some weight-lifting goodness with Cathe's PHA workout. Hopefully no mental breakdowns while doing the workout.
