Out Damn Negative Thoughts!

I’ve gotten into a very bad habit the past 6 months. I’ve become my own worst critic and I can’t seem to stop it.

When things go bad in a race, I start telling myself how slow I am, how much I suck, how I’m not trying hard enough, not working hard enough, giving up too easily.

When I don’t hit my times in the planned work outs that my coach set up for me, I find myself saying things like “He’s got to be frustrated with me.” Or “I bet he’ll be disappointed again.” Or “Maybe a coach is a waste of time.”

And when a friend teases me about running a 4 hour half marathon, I think “He knows me/my running better than most so I must really suck.”

I know I’m only making things worse. That it’s me who’s disappointed and frustrated (and embarrassed) and not my coach or my friends. I know that I’m not helping myself but…how do I stop it?

I’ve been in a funk ever since the DNF at Death Valley Trail Marathon. I haven’t raced well this year. I’ve been slow as molasses and my confidence is shattered. I doubt I can hit my workouts and I doubt I can keep a certain pace in a race and I think it causes me to live up…er, live down…to my expectations.

I’m tired of it. I want my confidence back. I want to be fast and feel fast.

I know that fast is relative and I know I’m not a 2:30 marathoner but I feel I have a sub 4 marathon in me. Actually, I don’t know what I’m capable of but I dream of going sub 3:55 and qualifying for Boston. I want to go sub 24 in a 5K and sub 50 in a 10K and 1:50 in a half. Or faster.

But to do that, I first have to quit telling myself I can’t.

On Saturday, I ran my 5th 5K. My 5K PR is 24:59 (set in 2011) but I honestly thought I would be lucky if I broke 30 minutes for the one on Saturday. I felt that 27 minutes would be a dream goal but I shouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t hit it. I thought there was an outside chance of hitting 27 minutes. Maybe.

Then I’m not sure what happened but I got mad at myself. The night before the race I started thinking about what it would take to PR and I started telling myself that I could do it. On race morning as I warmed up I lectured myself over and over again to try. To not give up. To run as hard as I could and try to PR. That it wasn’t impossible. I could do it. But only if I tried. I started the race…determined.

I ran hard.

I finished the race in 25:15.

So…no PR but I ran so hard I thought I was going to puke at the end. I never told myself I couldn’t do it while I was running. I talked myself out of giving up and settling for the slower 27 min goal from earlier. I was happy with my effort. I had run it with my heart instead of my head and because of that, I got a surprise when the times were posted…3rd in my age group! Woo! This is my 5K medal on the left and my AG medal on the right:

🙂 If this were a Hollywood movie, that would be the end…the happy runner girl running off into the sunset with a new mind and a new determination to make her goals happen.

Well, this ain’t Hollywood….

On Sunday, I ran the Rock n’ Roll San Diego Half Marathon (my 24th half marathon) and I was back to my old ways. If you look at the McMillan pace calc based on my 5K time…

…I should be able to go sub 2 for the half. My PR for the half is 1:57:26 (also set in 2011) but I was telling myself to shoot for 2:10 and to be happy with 2:15. And when things went south during the race (I lost 6 minutes to hit the port-a-potty and then fell before mile 10), I started in with the negative talk: I suck, I should just stop racing, I shouldn’t have signed up for that marathon at the end of June because it might take me 5 or more hours to finish and my friends will have to wait for me. What was I thinking? I was frustrated and embarrassed again and beating myself up over it.

Sigh.

Bad habits are hard to break. I have GOT to figure out how to break this one permanently before I give up trying all together. I just don’t know how right now.

Any suggestions? How do you deal with the negative voices?

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