Me Vs. Ego

I use the "smartcoach" at Runner's World to plan my running workouts. I put in a time for a race I've done and what race I'm training for and it puts together a workout plan on what distances and speeds I should be running to train for the race.

Lately I've been consistently slower than the pace set out by the smartcoach, so I had this conversation with my ego.

Me: I think I need to adjust my training plan, I'm not able to keep up with these times.

Ego: Naaah, this is based on one of your 5K races, you can do it.

Me: Yeah, but it's based on a 5K I did 3 months ago when I was running, and swimming, and biking regularly. Since then the weather has interrupted my biking and my schedule has cut out the swimming, and on top of that, an injury cut out a lot of my strength training.

Ego: but, but, if you lower your scores your RACE TIME will be lower.

Me: Look at what's going on ego, my race time is about to be lower anyway, and I'm going to get hurt along the way, it's time to slow down.

Spaz!

I have a spasm in a muscle in my neck/back. It's not cripplingly painful, but I don't want it to get that way, so I've been easing off on the workouts for about a week.

Running seems to actually help it, but kettlebells, kung fu, pushups, and biking are on hold.

Sometimes setbacks are part of the journey.

Trying Harder

On my bike ride in to work today, with plans to "go fast", I didn't manage to go very fast. So I analyzed my effort. I realized pretty quickly that in my 23-25 minute rides to work and my slightly longer rides home (It's mostly downhill there, mostly uphill back), that I was not feeling at the end of my rides the way I feel at the end of a 5K running race. The easy conclusion is that I was not working as hard on my bike as I work when I run.

So I decided to focus on effort level for the ride home.

I made it home in my fastest time ever for a ride home from work.

I thought I was trying hard, but I got tricked by my brain again.

I just had to try harder.