Fear of Speed

I am trying something new for this year's marathon: Adhering to a training plan. I did follow a terrific training plan pretty closely for my first marathon, but that one was geared to first-time marathoners and the goal was to finish.

Five years later, my goals are loftier. The training plan I'm enlisting to prepare for the 2014 Chicago Marathon, recommended by my team's coach, has me running three of my four weekly runs at a pace that feels unusually slow, a full minute+ per mile slower than my hoped for race pace. The theory (and research) being to allow my body to recover and to focus on the real task of building endurance through simply logging lots of miles. 

But then there is the 4th day. Speedwork. 

Today's speedwork was a six mile run, four at a tempo pace of 7:50 per mile. I have been anticipating and fearing today's workout since I printed the plan last weekend.

When I really thought about  today's planned run, there was nothing particularly scary. While the consistency of four miles at tempo is a bit of a challenge, four 7:50 miles are well within my reach.Yet fear remained (made worse by the need to be out the door by 6am sharp to miss the worst of the July heat and to accommodate jobs and kid camp drop off schedules). 

I can't point to exactly what I fear. No one is making me run, fast or slow. It's entirely of my choosing. While I have strong supporters in my life, those supporters are there no matter my finishing time. I have no health concerns. Maybe it is the fear of putting in the work and not seeing the desired results. The fear that this is as fast as I can make my engines go. Or is it the opposite, that success, however I define it, is within reach? Or is it that I just don't like discomfort (see also Running Outside My Comfort Zone).

I lay in bed for ten minutes after the alarm rang, contemplating an evening run instead. Then dragged myself up, threw on my running gear, downed half an iced coffee (breakfast of champions), readied the kids' backpacks, and headed out. I didn't use a watch, counting instead on effort and bolstered that I knew enough about myself as a runner to take on speedwork watchless. Never completely without technology, I turned on a running app on my phone so I could review afterwards. 

I was hot and very sweaty and thirsty and a little cranky. I ran an 8:20 for my warm up mile (too fast), then 8:00, 7:02 (!), 7:56, 8:09 and finally a 8:35 cool down. Hard, wildly inconsistent, not spot-on the recommended pace, but finished.

My take-away from today is that I still and forever have a lot to learn--about running and about everything.  And I love, in a terrified kind of way, to be ever-humbled by all I don't know.