Here is another update about my running journal aaand journey with Believe I Am — which I have found to be super helpful during these last few months. (Read more on why I’m doing it, my first goals update, and how journaling helped me take flight.)

Here are the initial goals I set, and how the heck I’m doing with them…

Gain back my speed. I had basically abandoned speed work when I took off during November (obviously…) but I tested out my speed the other day on the track to see if focusing on strength/yoga magically fostered some speed inside of me. And lo and behold — 200 meter repeats were not a disaster. In fact, I’m pretty much where I was before, if not a tiiiiny bit faster. Do I truly believe doing yoga over and over and over somehow unveiled the old sprinter in me? Not totally, but I think I went into the workout with more focus, and an understanding that it would feel hard…. but I had to push through it.

Move outside my comfort zone. In other words, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I am getting better at this as I realize some of the “numbers” goals I’ve set for myself are not as daring as they could be. Jocelyn told me I could run a 3:10 marathon (she also has a very interesting imagination). But maybe my initial goal of sub 3:40 wasn’t enough, and perhaps BQing isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Maybe sub 3:30 is where I should be. Maybe 7:30’s on the roads should be my “normal” pace. I’m trying to figure that out, and having a coach help me train for Eugene in the spring will really help me learn where my potentially truly lies.

Stop being so hard on myself. Again, this one will always be the hardest, but I’m working on it. I work up yesterday, and for whatever reason, felt frustrated. I was bitter that my morning run routine was “taken away” from me for so long, and that I didn’t want to feel slow, and I wanted to just go out there and run how I used to run. I flew out the door and tried to run that frustration to the ground— doing a loop around East Williamsburg up to North Greenpoint, the the two east river ferry’s, and back to the track. Yet when I looked at my watch, I saw I was running 8:10 splits, even though I felt like I was running 7:10. (I guess that’s what taking off a month will do to you.) I told myself to calm the heck down, to turn off my watch, and just go by feel. I came home and reminded myself that I need to build back to where I was sloooowly, and that I have months before another marathon knocks at my door.

There is time.