Getting My Mojo Back

I needed a good run -- a good aerobic run -- to restore the confidence I lost from last Saturday's flame out. I can't describe how disappointed I was to not push onward in that long run. I felt like I was facing the sort of crucible I might confront in a marathon and found out a little about the state of my mental toughness when I backed down from the struggle. Of course, there's also another side of the argument in that my "failure" wasn't due to lack of mental toughness, but rather poor preparation/planning/execution, and that should be my constructive lesson. It's hard, but I'm trying to adopt the latter perspective rather than beat myself up over the former.

Mondays are interval days on my rotation, and today I had scheduled a set of Yasso 800s, the value of which I'm skeptical, at least as far as marathon training is concerned. I chose 3:45 as my goal marathon time, which for the Yassos translates to 3 min and 45 second 800 intervals with 3:45 recoveries. That's a pretty easy pace over that distance -- only a 7:30 minute mile.

I'd planned to do 8, but wound up fitting in a 9th since I didn't need the full 3:45 each time to recover. I never reached my anaerobic threshold, which I think is contrary to what the Yassos are trying to accomplish. But that was okay for me. I was able to do some semi-speed work over the course of an hour while working on my aerobic conditioning too, which is where I think I need to put most of my effort.

Tomorrow, I want to get a mile swim in and work a weights circuit into the routine. No run planned, unless I do a short 2-3 mile easy around the neighborhood tomorrow night. Right now I'm trying to decide what my long distance run this coming weekend is going to be. Do I tackle the one that beat me up this past weekend? I just may.

20 days to go until Carlsbad Half Marathon.

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Yasso 800 interval heart rate details

Repeat	HRmax	HRrecover
1	147	100
2	149	100
3	150	103
4	153	104
5	155	107
6	156	107
7	156	109
8	156	no recovery
9	162	110