I didn’t post a summary of last week’s workouts, which is a bummer. To make a long story short – last week turned out to be an off week. I was off my sleep game. I was off my mental game. I was off my running game. On my long run (16 miles) I felt sick, I was tired, I was doubting my abilities, I was questioning whether I had made a huge mistake signing up for another marathon. I dropped a lot of f bombs.
This week? I got over all of that. I turned myself around with a 6 mile run on Tuesday and a gorgeous 5 mile run on Wednesday. J loves to run around Teddy Roosevelt Island in DC. He always talks about doing laps around the island. I didn’t get it for the longest time. Trails make me slower, there are little hills, it felt swampy.
But something clicked with me this year and I’ve been loving this island lately.
The loop I ran was beautiful, blissful and it felt effortless.
I did one quick lap and ran back up the hill home and straight to bed. It was perfect.
Last night I had 6 miles plus 10X100m strides. My coach has gotten me into running strides on a weekly basis, and it’s been awesome. Running miles and then pounding out some strides is a total recipe for feeling like a badass. Try it!
Work this week has been a challenge – lots of little things coming up that, when piled together, test my patience. I don’t think I am the most patient person. Running has helped a lot in teaching me to be a more patient person, but I still have my moments. One of the best pieces of advice an old boss ever gave me was “Assume good intent.” It is a real mindset game changer when it comes to some of these things that bug me.
This weekend I’m racing the Leesburg 20K. It’s my second time running it. I’m hoping for a course PR and 20K PR … not because I want to conquer the 20K, but rather because I want to see that the work I’ve put in so far, aimed at my fall marathon, is working. As runners, we crave that validation. We hope that the goals we set are reasonable. We run because we want to be better than we were the last time we raced. I’ll give a full race report soonest!
Fit For The Finish Line 
Beautiful pics! I have run/ridden past Roosevelt Island so many times, now I’m going to have to loop around it! Thank you 🙂
It really is a beautiful place to run & the loop around is a little less than a mile and a half, and there are water fountains!
Wow what pretty scenery! I hope your race goes/went well!