Finding perspective and favoring the good

Today's run was supposed to be one of those warm-up a mile, run at race pace for a distance, then cool down for a mile.  I did the warm-up and cool down as instructed.  But not so much the race pace part.

Actually, I ran much too fast.  And I did it on purpose.  And I don't really care.

(To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what my race pace is going to be...if last week was any indication, very slow.  Slower than I had hoped).

Here's what I realized, though.  Sometimes, you need runs like this to remind you that you are not just in an eternal circle of annoying runs.  The race pace distance today was 1.5 miles.  My warm-up and cool-down miles felt pretty meh.  But, for every meh mile, I had a good mile, and another .5 of good to boot.  That's like 1.25 good for every 1.00 bad.  This got me thinking about finding a better way to think about a broader perspective when running.

I think that most of us tend to dwell on the runs that don't go as planned--by which I mean me, of course.  But I realized today that for every bad run I have ever done in my life, I have done at least one good run where nothing went wrong and I completed the distance as planned.  In fact, I'll bet I've done more than one good one.  Probably for every five good runs, there might be a bad run (actually, if I averaged this over my entire running career, I suspect that bad run number is even smaller).  So I need to remember this when I am tired and frustrated, and things aren't going as planned.

I also realized the wisdom in running other events while you are training for a long run.  Last year, my marathon plan included running a 5k and a 10k during the preparation.  In retrospect, this is genius.  Even if you do not run a record-setting pace (and I did not for the 5k....couldn't find a 10k), you are reminded that you are not a super-slow awful runner who barely sloshed through 12 miles last week--by which I mean me, of course.

I've already decided that I need a different plan for the next half-marathon training.  Maybe it's also time to include some shorter runs to make it more fun.  And, of course, to get some more t-shirts.