I'll Imagine I'm Someone Else... And I'm AMAZING!

I've struggled with my mental game this training round. I've been doing a lot of solo runs which I had intended to be a magical time with myself to contemplate really smart stuff and become my full potential. Um... yeah. That was my intention.... and well, that just hasn't happened. Instead I've spent lots of time running alone and the little gremlin of self doubt has been a cruel little shit to say the least.

He keeps telling me I'm not picking up my feet enough, my pace isn't good enough, I'm taking too many walk breaks, everyone everywhere is better at this than me, I should have run more miles, I should have done more speed work, I should have lost 10 pounds and grown my legs 4 inches longer...

But the fact is that my taper is starting and the work I've done will carry my body through this marathon. In theory, right? Ugh.

How do I deal with this doubt and Debbie Downer thoughts going through my head? Well, I pretend I'm someone else! A "natural". There are a couple gals in my running group that are incredibly talented and when they run it just looks like no big deal. Probably how I look when I eat half a pizza. You know? No big deal, I do this all the time! So in the middle of a crap run I pretend that I'm "good at running, isn't this easy, fast girl". And for about 5-10 minutes it works really well!!! I'm amazing! Then it goes away. But maybe comes back later.

I'm driving in my car the other day and I hear this song and I start laughing because of this scene from a movie you've probably never seen. But I'm downloading this song for the race. And I'm gonna hear it, and I'm gonna laugh, and I'm gonna imagine I'm Chazz from Blades of Glory, and I'm AMAZING!



 

So that's what I'll be doing during my race to keep the gremlins away and to keep myself entertained. Pretending I'm a really good runner and also a really horrible and awesome ice skater. Oh let's see how this one turns out...