Remorse, Rethinking, Retooling

First a quick race report: The 10k didn't go as planned. Poor sleep amounts the two nights before the race. Decided I'd still try to go out at planned pace and see at Mile 2. At about 1.5, I felt like I was going to look like the pumpkin if I went much longer, and didn't have much juice in the legs. I finished in 42:09 (i think). Not a bad race, but far from what I wanted. This coming on the tail of a couple poor weeks of training left me wanting a bit more.

So it's time to retool and reload. I had to slow down and look at where my training errors are/were. I think the speedwork was too soon. I'm not experienced enough at finding a smooth easy running pace to be doing serious speed training. I screwed up most of my workouts last week (being stressed highly from work) and really killed my mindset. I'm tougher than what I showed in the last week.

So here's the plan:
1) Periodize the training plan. Higher frequency lower intensity workouts for the next 2.5 weeks. It's time to re-find the love of running. (Part 1 can be called "I feel His pleasure."

2) Realize that I'm in a pretty good spot. Not that I want to go onto some kind of relative scale, but I need to be mindful of how well I'm doing. 5 years ago, I weighed 240 and running 4 miles was a chore that couldn't be completed in less than 33-34 minutes. I'm now 192-195 and I feel great.
3) Re-find the mental dominance and push myself in the middle of the training plan. (Hills and speed workouts are still coming back later on. I'm also considering running some massive amounts of stairs to mix it up. along the same vein, a couple grinder hill workouts might have to be completed at Raven run in the upcoming weeks.

4) Not take it too seriously: this is the first marathon and it's a bit crazy to think I've got some kind of competitive future in distance running. It's got to be fun and a release from the stresses of life. It also has to be a placid thing at time.