Confidence. Ugh.

Ok, blog world. I think I left you last with my goals for the year. One of those included POSSIBLY running a 1/2 marathon. It's my third attempt and it WAS going well.

My time was consistently around the 11 min/mi mark (better than I thought when getting past 3-4 mile runs) and my knees were doing pretty good. They'd still ache very mildly at times, but nothing near what I had dealt with in the past. I also was babying myself: using the foam roller consistently to help with left leg tightness (which also is also the bad knee side), scheduling massages for after the long runs and only running 3 times a week.

Then towards the end of last week I got this wild idea to actually participate in a 10k since I had to do a 6 mile run that weekend anyway (10k is 6.2 miles for those who don't know). I figured it would be good to get use to getting up at the butt-crack of dawn and have the race atmosphere. Bright idea, Tonja.

For one, I am very much so a night runner. I have my best runs after 8pm. I also like the cold and get over-heated rather easily when the sun is out, even if it is pretty darn cold outside. I also think my body just likes to have a full day of meals in it rather than trying to run after what is usually a 8-10 hour fast.

So everything was against me Sunday morning, but I really (and VERY honestly) didn't have any of that on my mind. My confidence was up. My running was going great.. and what was 1.2 more miles when the 5 miles the weekend before went well?

Let's just say my confidence was blown to pieces. I can understand that I did start out a little fast and therefore I was out of breath a little sooner than I had expected, but my knees HURT. You'd think if they would start hurting that bad it would be beyond the mileage I did the weekend before, but Nooooooooooooo. I would say just a couple of miles in I am thinking "oh crap, what is going on!?!"

The good news is I finished in about 1:07 which is under a 11 min/mile - and I was quite proud of that. But my confidence is shot for the looming 7 miler this weekend. The bad news is, the lack of confidence (and sore legs earlier in the week) kept me from running at all this week. So now I've managed to miss two of my training runs and have this huge mental obstacle of my long run this weekend.

*sigh*

Anyhow - I spent a good portion of tonight mapping out my 7 mile and 8 mile run using Runkeeper - you can visit my profile here. My routes are public so I think you should be able to find them if you are interested in where I'll be.

If you're the praying type, pray for a miracle. Somehow between now and mid-March my body needs to cooperate.

Third time is a charm, right?