Believe you can and you're halfway there

I've heard the claim that distance running is 90% mental and 10% physical, and although I'm not sure those percentages are exactly accurate, I think we can all agree that the mental aspect of training and racing is huge.  I have yet to figure out how to strike a balance between being realistic but not pessimistic, and being confident but not over-confident.  Running beyond your capabilities early in a race or workout is nearly always a recipe for disaster, especially with long races.  No one ever says, "I'm sure glad I believed I could go out 45 seconds faster per mile than I'd trained for in that marathon!"  But, on the other hand, believing you can accomplish something is typically a prerequisite for actually accomplishing it.

My running in 2018 has had it's ups and downs, but overall it simply has not been as fast, strong, or consistent as I ran during my CIM build up.  While I believe that the mileage I'm putting in is going to help me pursue my big marathon goals, I also can't force paces that currently aren't there.  I had a couple of good races in March, and also some workouts that have reassured me that I haven't lost everything, but those have been the exception rather than the norm.  Realistically I know that it's unlikely I will match or better my marathon PR this build, and I'm okay with that.  I enjoy the training process, and even if I knew I'd never run faster than 2:47:14 I would still keep racing marathons.

I had a big key somewhat scary marathon workout over the weekend.  Workouts like this are extremely important because they are few and far between.  If you nail them they are very confidence-boosting; if you fail them you may have to re-evaluate your marathon goals.  I thrive on these long workouts and I was so excited for this one that I didn't consider that everything was stacked against me until after the workout.

The workout was 3.5 mile warm up, 2 x 4 mile tempo + 2 x 2 mile tempo with 0.5 recovery jogs between the tempos, 3.5 miles cool down.  That's 12 miles of work within a 20 mile long run (the 20.5 was me over-achieving on the warm up that only had to be 3 miles).  My tempo range was broad:  6:03-6:26, aiming to start at the top of the range and work down.  When I saw the workout on paper, I knew I could do it.  I kept coming back to one of my favorite verses before and during the workout, "God is within her; she will not fall." - Psalms 46:5

In retrospect, really nothing I've run lately indicated that I could actually do it, so I have no real explanation for why I believed I could (especially because I've looked at most other workouts on my schedule lately and known that I couldn't do them).  In all of my past training cycles, before running a workout like this I've run an easy 20 miler, but due to how my half marathon races lined up this season, I hadn't done that this time around.  In fact, the farthest I'd run was 17 miles, and it wasn't even a good 17 (I was supposed to fast finish it but it was all I could do to hold onto 7:15 pace through the end)!  This workout also came earlier in the cycle than it typically does, being 10 weeks before the marathon compared to it usually being about 6 weeks out.  I've failed more workouts than I've hit this season.  Really the only indication that I might be able to pull this off was my solid 6.5 mile 10K the previous weekend.

Here is what I did for the split tempos and recoveries (I split off the warm up and cool down miles):

All of my splits were in my target range, starting at 6:25 and finishing at 6:04.  As with every split tempo I ever run, the hardest miles were the ones after the recovery jogs (the split is really more for your mind than your body, and my body sure doesn't like slowing down then re-starting, but it does help me run the final mile of each portion a little faster).  I averaged 6:18 pace for the tempo miles, and even with having 1.5 miles of recovery jogging in there I came through the half marathon point at 1:24:50ish.  This was significant to me since I have only run under 1:25 in 5 halves - one time each at 1:20, 1:21, 1:22, 1:23, and 1:24 (although I have done it 4 other times in one or both halves of a full marathon).  Edit:  I forgot to count the 2017 Kansas City Half Marathon, although I'm not exactly sure what time to count that one as due to the course snafu (probably 1:23), so this should be 6 halves...but as of 4/28/17, update that to 8 halves (plus 4 times in fulls).  So many disclaimers here now and this statistic no longer seems impressive, but 1:25 was a big deal for me for a long time!

I've run similar workouts in all of my recent marathon builds, and typically my average on the work portions is quite close to what I end up running in the marathon.  Before CIM, I averaged 6:20 on the work miles (then went on to average 6:22 in the race); before Phoenix I averaged 6:27 on the work miles (then went on to average 6:27 in the race); before Prairie Fire/Bass Pro I averaged something like 6:45 for the work miles (then averaged 6:42-6:47 in those races).  In all fairness, this time around the weather was the best I've ever had for this workout at about 30* and only 6 mph wind, so that sure didn't hurt.

I don't think this one workout means I'm out of the woods as far as running hot and cold this build, but it sure made me happy!  I've been desperately searching for a pattern of what results in good runs vs. bad runs for me this year, and I can't really find any reliable one.  I do know, though, that believing I could run this workout, as unrealistic as that probably was, didn't hurt.  When Grandma's gets closer, I'll know realistically what pace to target, whether it's 6:17 or 6:40, and I will believe I can run it.