Adding Mileage and Maintaining a Positive Attitude

Today I ran nine miles at a recovery pace (a little slower than easy pace). This is probably the farthest I’ve run the day after a long run. My legs felt a bit tired today, but not too bad. A couple of keys to this run and staying relatively fresh were that I paid attention to the pace, and I fueled up with a good pasta meal at lunch. The point of the recovery run is to get in the miles and still allow the legs to recover from previous runs. I’ve never really had the patience to maintain the proper pace before. I’m curious to see if it works for tomorrow’s run.

I noticed on today’s run that the great positive attitude that I had towards my running last week is starting to fade. It’s not that I now have a bad attitude; it’s just not what it was. I think a big reason for the decline is that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. For a long time, I was always training with a goal race in sight. This time of year it was supposed to be for an October marathon. Well, October’s right around the corner, and I won’t be running a marathon. I think in order to keep my attitude up and stay motivated for the next couple of months, I need to keep reminding myself that my February marathon will be here before I know it and that 26.2 miles is a long way to run. Those two thoughts should keep me moving forward for awhile. One other thing I’ll do is to read a running book to help with the motivation. Hopefully, I can find one that’s more anecdotal, rather than something on marathon training.