A Love Letter to the Weeknight Speed Run
Today I had a 7 mile speed run scheduled. I usually dread these days—even when my weekend long runs are twice the length—because of the intensity. I also don’t have the mental preparation that I do on weekends, when I can sleep early and spend the day carb loading. These sessions are on work days.
I decided to do this particular run at the gym on the treadmill. Though not my favorite mentally, I wanted to avoid the heat and have a better control of my paces. The plan for this workout was to keep every pace at or faster than my goal pace for the marathon, incorporating in half mile intervals going significantly faster than my goal.
I found myself trudging through the first half, struggling to find my rhythm, every step not hitting quite as naturally as I wanted. My goal pace was feeling awkward. I was less than a third through, and I was already feeling like I wanted to stop. I decided I had to be at least three quarters done to consider dialing down my paces, so I continued on.
A couple miles later, I was in the slower half of an interval, fearing the moment I’d have to dial the speed up. In a split second, I noticed something so strange — the cheerleader and the critic in my brain were fighting. But the mental spirit squad was… winning?
“I can stop. No one will care. I could just go down to my usual slow pace. It would be so much easier. We didn’t sleep well last night, our nutrition was off. We’re so bored. It’s a little too hot in the gym. Have you considered….” and on and on and on.
Usually this side wins out, and successfully convinces me that comfort should eclipse whatever goal I had in mind for myself. But for some reason, today it didn’t. I started to feel my brain retaliate against its own doubt. I took inventory of my body: nothing was hurting, I had water with me to hydrate if I needed to, I wasn’t feeling light headed. I physically was not spent. There was really nothing to lose by betting on myself and believing that I could do it. It was a disservice, in fact, to not believe that I could.
I changed my playlist and finished out the intervals. For the last one, I cranked the speed up faster. I finished the interval, then I thought “let’s see what happens if I just… keep going…” And I did, and I didn’t turn into dust or pass out. It was much harder than other runs I’ve done lately, but I finished in one piece.
My mileage is steadily increasing week to week. I know my body is adjusting physically, building muscle and endurance. But mentally, training is not so linear. It’s an exercise in unlearning a lot of the habits of self criticism I have struggled with on and off throughout my journey with fitness.
The wisdom gleaned in moments like this throughout my training has slowly seeped into other areas of my life as well. The mantras “I can do hard things” and “I can do anything for 5 minutes. 1 mile. 2 hours.” are translating gently into my career, pushing myself outside my comfort zone, and trusting my own intuition in relationships with other people.
Today, I felt the physical and the mental click into alignment in my brain. My body could handle it, and my brain was finally agreeing. Following that split-second discussion going on somewhere inside my ego, I felt so grateful for my body — in different seasons of life, it has taken me to soccer practice. It took me to the park to shoot hoops with my dad. It took me to (and very quickly away from) cross country in middle school. It took me on jogs on the beach at UCSB with my roommate. It has been my partner in this training plan. I am thankful for my heart, which I know has gotten stronger.
And no, I don’t mean just physically.