Day 11: mood swings...

Dry but slightly colder and windier day today, for a 30 min Fartlek session along the river and Shadwell Basin (which, contrary to what the GPS says, we do not swim across). I felt more energetic than at the beginning of the week, thanks to a simple jog yesterday, a TV night and some recovery time. My left knee cap hurt a bit but that seemed to fade away pretty soon after this morning's session.

Coach Stephen, however, is coming down with a cold and I was quite chuffed that he still made it and made some useful remarks about tense shoulders and pace-breaking turns, which seem to be the two things I need to work on at present.

Last night was one of those moments where a pep talk was highly needed, as I have now definitely entered that phase of my training where the body says no and the mind starts to think no as well. When this happens, it seems I start doubting my ambitious goals and reverting to the general "if I finish the race I'll be happy" attitude, which is true yet not entirely true. I'd much prefer the positive feeling of having done well at the race despite it being my first, than the feeling of having managed to complete it despite it being my first. I have yet to determine what "doing well" means here, as depending on my level of energy and the difficulty of the task ahead, I decide that my goal will be to run the Bath Half in under 2 hours, or I decide that I want to be in the top 50% finishers, or (when I'm low) that I just don't want to finish last.

I also have very little understanding of how fit/unfit a runner I am, as I have not yet had a chance to compare myself to anybody else (as coach Stephen obviously adjusts his own pace to help me achieve my objectives realistically). In that sense, I think running the Leatherhead Firestation 10k (love the name!!!) will be helpful. To be completely honest and blunt, I guess I am looking forward to seeing other people running slower than I do :o) :o) !

All in all, I was a little off last night and questioning the challenge of this 24-week training, wondering why I should do it when others just do the minimum required to complete the race without collapsing, wondering if this constant hunger of mine would settle to a balanced set of dietary habits, and if I would at any point not feel like this is completely overtaking my life, as it robs me every night of a whole hour of "me" time because I am so desperate to go to bed :)

But the truth is, I'd rather do it the hard way because knowing myself, I will feel such a bigger sense of achievement afterwards. So, we've decided to keep to our hard-core programme at least until the Leatherhead 10, when I will know a little better where I stand and what I should do next.