Mental Workout
I'm surprised that there isn't a workout approach designed to develop mental toughness. Just like speed workouts, tempo workouts, LSD's all target specific aspects of running, there should be workouts that simulate all the hell that the mind goes through in race conditions without having to go through the accompanying physical hell.
If such a workout is developed, I think it would be on the treadmill. I also think I may have come close to such a workout this afternoon. It snowed yesterday and the streets were unrunnable this morning. I usually work out during lunch on Tuesday but two poorly timed meetings precluded that. So I had 3-5 this afternoon, to get in my desired 12 mile workout, and substituted 6 marathon pace miles for the tempo miles I had planned to do (treadmill isn't fast enough to go tempo). Warmup to the accompaniment of JoJo Hermann on the iPod, steadily cranking up the pace to make an incremental transition to MP (and Chris Knight's Pretty Good Guy on the iPod) at 3 miles. At the end of my first MP mile I knew I was going to have a tough time. The legs were doing alright but the head wasn't. Just went through alot of anxiety-type crud, unsure of whether I could hang on to MP for six, the hundredths of a mile just crawling past, and in retrospect a poor choice of music as the album is a collection of songs about ordinary guys facing very tough situations, not really stuff I wanted to be listening to at that time. The treadmill became like a bull, on which I had to hang on and ride until the alotted time was over.
I hung on. Felt like I was bottoming out during the third MP mile, when I had some under my belt but still seemed to be eons from being done. After that it got easier as the amount to go got less and I got more confident I could finish. Then a leg cramp (right calf again) at 5.5 miles of MP left me with a dilemma of whether to cut it short. But by that time anything short of doing the planned upon 6 would have felt like defeat, like the bull threw me off. So I ran through it. As a reward I now have a big old knot in that calf. . . again. Relief was slowing that infernal machine down from 10 to 7.5, but then it took another forever to finish the 3 mile cooldown.
So just like legs feel during a set of 400 meter reps was how my head felt this afternoon. Does that mean I'm developing mental muscles (would that make me a musclehead?)? Will I be able to hang better on Sunday's 10k? Tune in and find out.
The problem with this workout was that while mentally it may have reaped benefits, it also kicked my ass physically as I've been hobbling around since then. Need to find a workout that can do the former without the latter. When I find that I'll start my own coaching business. Or someone reading this will steal the idea before I can act on it.
Anyway, new month. March is typically a workhorse month, getting in those long runs and harder workouts to set up for the taper into Boston. Last year's monthly mileage was 280, so I'll set that as my goal, 300 as my reach goal, and 250 as my fallback goal.
If such a workout is developed, I think it would be on the treadmill. I also think I may have come close to such a workout this afternoon. It snowed yesterday and the streets were unrunnable this morning. I usually work out during lunch on Tuesday but two poorly timed meetings precluded that. So I had 3-5 this afternoon, to get in my desired 12 mile workout, and substituted 6 marathon pace miles for the tempo miles I had planned to do (treadmill isn't fast enough to go tempo). Warmup to the accompaniment of JoJo Hermann on the iPod, steadily cranking up the pace to make an incremental transition to MP (and Chris Knight's Pretty Good Guy on the iPod) at 3 miles. At the end of my first MP mile I knew I was going to have a tough time. The legs were doing alright but the head wasn't. Just went through alot of anxiety-type crud, unsure of whether I could hang on to MP for six, the hundredths of a mile just crawling past, and in retrospect a poor choice of music as the album is a collection of songs about ordinary guys facing very tough situations, not really stuff I wanted to be listening to at that time. The treadmill became like a bull, on which I had to hang on and ride until the alotted time was over.
I hung on. Felt like I was bottoming out during the third MP mile, when I had some under my belt but still seemed to be eons from being done. After that it got easier as the amount to go got less and I got more confident I could finish. Then a leg cramp (right calf again) at 5.5 miles of MP left me with a dilemma of whether to cut it short. But by that time anything short of doing the planned upon 6 would have felt like defeat, like the bull threw me off. So I ran through it. As a reward I now have a big old knot in that calf. . . again. Relief was slowing that infernal machine down from 10 to 7.5, but then it took another forever to finish the 3 mile cooldown.
So just like legs feel during a set of 400 meter reps was how my head felt this afternoon. Does that mean I'm developing mental muscles (would that make me a musclehead?)? Will I be able to hang better on Sunday's 10k? Tune in and find out.
The problem with this workout was that while mentally it may have reaped benefits, it also kicked my ass physically as I've been hobbling around since then. Need to find a workout that can do the former without the latter. When I find that I'll start my own coaching business. Or someone reading this will steal the idea before I can act on it.
Anyway, new month. March is typically a workhorse month, getting in those long runs and harder workouts to set up for the taper into Boston. Last year's monthly mileage was 280, so I'll set that as my goal, 300 as my reach goal, and 250 as my fallback goal.
posted by seebo | 8:16 PM
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