Week 7: 1 Wall Down, 1 to Go

Pic to See (Creative right?)

Lacing up my shoes this morning before the sun reached out over the bay I really wasn't sure just what to expect.  For a few days my calves and knees had hurt, and I was finding myself with less and less motivation to push on.  Today I was approaching a wall (see pic).  Okay not exactly "the wall" at around 18-20 miles, not there yet, but a mental wall I had from 7 weeks ago when I was defeated and had to walk the remaining two miles home in total agony after attempting a 15 miler I was totally unprepared for.

The good part was I felt ready.  I'd iced what needed to be iced, rested what needed to rested, and petroleum jellied what needed to be jellied and after failing to find the GPS after the first go around my watch finally found it.  With a shot, (or more of a shuffle) I started out one foot at a time trying to ignore the looming wall in my mind ahead of (reference pic again if need be) and repeating my mantra over and over again in my head:  "I ain't everybody."

All in all the run was epic.  It definitely wasn't my fastest, something I think having to do with the massive camel bag full of water on my back (which I'll revisit later), but it felt great.  Not easy, but not hard either, and just around 2 hours and 45 minutes later I was done and felt truly accomplished. Even better in less than 30 minutes after having my remaining pop tart (new running fuel [more  to come on this also]) and my post run protein shake I felt completely recovered even enough to head down to the beach for a quick swim.

So what did I do differently?  For one thing the 7 extra weeks of ramped up mileage certainly helped.  Another thing was getting out before the sun got up for most of it.  While the temperature and humidity don't really change down here too much, being out of the sun for 90% of my run certainly seemed to make a big difference.  Lastly, I had some pretty intense motivation.  Last night I watched the Desert Runners.  An epic story of a group of amateur runners attempting to do the 4 big desert Ultra's all in one year.  For anyone dipping a little low in the motivation department I can't recommend this movie enough and if you don't shed a tear anywhere in it, then your heart must be made of stone as my eyes were barely dry at all during the whole thing.

The moral of today's story?  Confidence.  Confidence in knowing you've trained to do this, knowing you can really rock it, and the best part: knowing your not trying to complete 4 ultras over some of the hardest desert courses on the planet.  I truly believe confidence makes all the difference.  For me today I made the 15 miler mine, and I now own it.  It isn't a world record or anything anyone will ever make a movie about but its mine.  Now having that little gem swimming around in the back of my mind how hard can next Sunday's 16 really be?  Either way the first wall is down, and its time to go find the next.

Week 7 of 16:  COMPLETE.  

Week 9 Preview:  Got my eye on you!