I recently received the book The Runner’s Brain when I was at the Runner’s World Half and Festival. I am just about to start it and will be reviewing it when I’m done, but I wanted to share my own thoughts on the role your brain plays in marathon running before I read what the “professionals”…
Category: mental
TOTR: Running free for all
All of us over at Tuesdays on the Run have a little bit of crazy going on in our lives right now, so we decided to make this week be a “free topic” week. So write about any running related topic and link up with April, Patty, and me this week. Real topics resume next…
Top 5 posts of 2014
I’ve been noticing these posts around the blogosphere, so I was curious to see what I’d find in my own statistics. I mean, I take a look at my stats on a regular basis, so I kind of have a feel for what is popular, but I wanted to see what posts came out on…
Tuesdays on the Run: The Mental Side of Running
I’m gonna be honest here: lately training has sucked. My long runs haven’t even made it to long run status and my short runs have been minutes off of my normal pace. Yet, I still manage to pull out decent races most of the time. Know what that tells me? My problems are mental, not…
#IfEverybodyRan
Mizuno posed this question and had the University of North Carolina Business School do an analysis of studies that were already out there. Obviously, there were some assumptions made and some leaps of faith taken, but the conclusions were interesting. Here are some of the interesting findings: 29.3 million happier marriages 48.1 million fewer cigarettes…
Running for sanity
I knew this week would be crazy. I knew I’d be exhausted. I knew I wouldn’t want to run. Let’s recap: I’m driving 2-4 hours a day to take Jones to and from camp. Meanwhile, I’m trying to finalize my decision on a new car. (I’ve narrowed it to a Toyota Prius or a Kia…
What’s Beautiful: Embracing discomfort
I’ve always loved this quote. I am not a thrill seeker (you won’t find me jumping out of planes…), but I believe that stepping outside of one’s comfort zone can lead to amazing experiences. If we always play it safe, we can’t know what life changing thing might be just around the corner. (I totally…
The Joy of running + WIAW
Lately, all of my running has been done for one reason: to train for this crazy ass goal of five half marathons in five days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about my goal and a lot of my runs have been enjoyable, but they all have a goal: to build my mileage high enough…
Is it Mental?
I had two crazy good runs this week. Both were about 5 miles and both came in under the 10 minute pace. I have no idea why they were good. They just were. And I’ve learned not to complain when run goes good. ;o) Enter the “long run”. It’s not even really all that long. …
Post-Sandy + mind strengthening run
Today I had 7 miles on the plan. It was the only day that I could get in a “long run”. I had been cold all day, so I decided to run near home in case I got to warm from overdressing or didn’t warm up enough and needed a jacket. (As it turns out,…
My run is sneaky!
After four days off running, I woke up to a cool, rainy day yesterday. While I usually love running in that weather, I hadn’t had much sleep the night before and the grey made me cranky. (I’m a little bit stressed about keeping this stupid gecko alive. I swear I’m worse than when I had…
No rhyme or reason
Sometimes I have amazing runs. Sometimes I have runs that completely suck. Some days my legs feel fresh, others not so much. On any given day, my stomach can rebel. Or not. There are certain factors that are likely to make a run better than others. Cool weather=good run. Rest days=happy legs. Eating right=happy tummy….