Confidence

Last night my youngest son Mikey, who recently celebrated his 2nd birthday, decided that he has had enough of his crib. He finally worked up the courage to climb out of it and claim his freedom from his confined sleeping space. Nothing revolutionary had occurred with Mikey, either physically or mentally, in the past month to allow him to finally be able to climb out of the crib. Actually, he's probably been capable of getting out for a few months now, but luckily for mommy and daddy, he didn't know that he could get out. Once he figured out that he could do it, there was no turning back. We tried to get him back in the crib, but he would climb out again before we could even get to the door. What sparked this sudden climbing ability within Mikey? Confidence. Once he knew he could get out of that crib, it became easy for him. He no longer had to worry about the unknown. He knew he could do it.

Confidence is such a strange thing. Sometimes I look at the workouts that guys who are faster than me do, and I think I could do that. I could run with this guy in workouts, but why would he whip my butt in a race? I wonder if it is as simple as just confidence. The guy next to me knows he can run this thing in X amount of time, whereas I'm still thinking I might be able to. Should there be more of a focus on the mental aspect of this thing or does confidence come with work? I have a 5K coming up in a few weeks. It is the first race I've done in a couple of months and I will step to the line just about as confident as I could be. While I don't think I'll hit my ultimate goal of breaking 16 minutes, I will hopefully lower my PR and get closer to 16. Many runners talk about breakthrough performances. A race or a workout where they reach a new plateau in their running and once they get there, they never look back. That's what I'm hoping for this summer. I'm confident I can do that.

Today I did 10 miles at a very relaxed pace. My legs were not real happy with me for most of the run, but they did loosen up a little at the end. I think I'm suffering from some severe glycogen depletion. Since I went camping this past weekend, my diet has consisted of a lot of meat, and very little carbs. Not exactly the ideal diet for a runner. Today I'm focusing on carbs to try and get some energy in these tired bones. Hopefully tomorrow's 23 miler will reflect that.