Monday, June 30th, 2008

Coping Methods

posted by lizzie    « 4 Comments »    tied to Uncategorized   

We’re several weeks into our marathon training, but we are just barely getting back into the mindset of marathon training, including the mind games and coping techniques. Up until last week we had been focusing on breathing, strides, and how our bodies were holding up in general. This made for long long runs and (at least for me) a lot of calculating and re-calculating how far we’d gone and how much farther we had to go.

Then on Saturday we forgot to keep asking each other how we were feeling. I read a story this week from the New Yorker about itching and for the last 2 miles of our run I told Micah about it. They were the quickest 2 miles we’ve run since we started, and part of it was even up the treacherous hill that I always look forward to putting behind me. When we almost passed our street because we weren’t paying attention we remembered that they way to run long runs is to not think about it at all. We used to save up conversation topics for Saturday mornings just so we would have plenty to keep our minds occupied besides the fact that we still had five miles to go and our legs are feeling the burn. It was a great way to make us talk about things that would never have come up in normal conversation, and keeping up conversation helps regulate breathing without having to think about it. And really, how can you think about how your legs are feeling when you are talking about somebody scratching a hole through her skull?

Comments

  1. The Richards says:
    July 1, 2008 at 9:13 pm

    Wow, major props to both of you! I’m so not a runner, but I’m impressed that you guys can. Whenever Cameron asks what I want to talk about, it usually ends up being dinosaurs or the Civil War. Maybe one of those will get you through a mile or two. ;0)

  2. Stephanie says:
    July 2, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    Wow, that itch article was very interesting, and kind of creepy. Now I’m feeling itchy…

  3. diana palmer says:
    July 3, 2008 at 5:48 am

    ooooh, which marathon are you training for and when?

  4. harmony says:
    July 3, 2008 at 8:46 pm

    that was a CRRRAZY article!! but yeah – pretty interesting. who’da thunk it was actually possible to scratch a hole through your head?! ewww.

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