Thursdays and rest

I went to an amazing spinning class.  What you may ask makes a spinning (or bicycle-to-nowhere) class so amazing?  This class just has alot of energy and a good selection of electronic|dance music which keeps the pace pretty fast (and never seems to end).  Well that and the instructor yelling at you to "go faster, work harder" always seems to do the trick.  Half way through the class I was entirely drenched in sweat and utterly loving life - pretty stellar that it is that easy right?!!

I decided that tonight rather then cramming in another workout I am going to go see my sister and niece.  I have noticed a big shift in my energy levels when I give myself two back-to-back rest days before a long run.  As of tomorrow it will be exactly a month away, which I am starting to actually get excited about.  This weekend I am off to Vermont with my mom to check-out part of the course.  I was thinking about it yesterday and some of the other reasons that I wanted to run this specific marathon are that alot of what I remember from my childhood is running around outside with my cousins in Vermont.  This is all sort of making sense in a number of different ways.  It is also something that I can also share with my family and close friends (though I am quite sure that at this point they are probably pretty tired of hearing about running). 

I can't even express how much support I have felt this entire time I have been training.  When you feel that much support, on the days where you can't even fathom anymore training it helps to push you forward.  Sometimes when I am really tired I will run a route where there are alot of cars, no not because I have a death wish, because I wouldn't want anyone to see me slow down or stop.  It doesn't really make a ton a sense since really my runs only mean something to me, but it still helps.  On longer runs I have imagined friends running with me and when it gets really tough I think to myself they wouldn't stop so why should I?  I have also implemented a new running strategy for what I consider to be a bad run.  For me a bad run is when I don't have energy; when my legs, heart, and mind don't work together or just my rhythm is off.  What I have started doing is rerunning the exact same route on another day.  I do this to help banish any bad feelings that I am holding to one particular run or day.  Ok so I think that you may be getting a sense of the type of psychological tricks that I use to push through - whatever works!!