Doubts And Adjusting Expectations...

I've been doing a lot of reading lately (perhaps too much) on what it takes to succeed in one's athletic goals. Setting aside the genetic component that leads to superior performance, it does seem to come down to trust in one's training and confidence (maybe attitude is a better word) in one's ability to succeed.

Ran 13 miles on Saturday. Thirteen frickin' miles! That's a half! The first eight or so, no problem. After that, the doubts started to creep in. I was tired. The weather was starting to warm up more than I anticipated. I kept going though. I was supposed to do 15 actually, but at 13 I pretty much ended up on my own street, and running past my house and on for another two miles just didn't seem that appealing. After all, I need to run 13, I don't have to run 15--especially not when I was struggling and it was getting warm out there. The genetics? Not so much. I do trust in my training. I have been consistent. I have put out the effort and with rare exception, have completed my scheduled workouts as prescribed. The confidence part though?

Let's be honest. I know I can run the 13. I am confident I will complete the race without any undue issues. But I'm not entirely confident I will complete it in the time I want to complete it in. All the calculators put me somewhere in the 2:16 range. I know I can run it in the 2:30 +/- range. But 2:16? Granted, it should be quite a bit cooler out there by November, which is definitely going to help. And I will have that much more training under my belt by that point. And then there's the taper--I should be well rested and ready to go. But 2:16?

In the interest of staying positive, I do have something kind of cool to report. Although my Garmin foot pod has been giving me wonky readings on the treadmill, I've left it clipped to my shoe when running outside. Didn't realize this until after this Saturday's run, but even though I was using GPS outside, apparently the foot pod continues to send cadence data to the Garmin. Uploaded my run when I got home and 'lo and behold, my cadence averaged 90 steps per minute! Right where it should be. Even better, I looked more closely at the data from my last few outdoor runs, and sure enough, there has been a steady improvement in cadence from the low 80's to this 90. W00T!

Observed: Four shiny pennies. One knit fingerless glove. One dirty navy blue mens' dress sock. WTF? How do you lose one dress sock out on the road?