Evil tendencies of the brain

Great article which talks about how much your brain can actually affect your running. Your brain is almost a safety valve which determines how much your body can take given the feedback from your muscles during rigorous exercise. Basically, your body will send warning signals to your brain which then attempts calculate the amount of fuel left in your body – if it deems that a “danger zone” is being approached, it will basically send word to your leg muscles to contract which consequently leads to slowing down. But it is possible to talk your brain out of this safety mode, so important to really focus hard when your body feels like it is going to break down and talk your way through it – we have all been there and all had runs that seems harder than before, so use a running mantra or play mind games to get out of this funk!

Last night, Crystal and I did our run on the GC Trails. Weather was nice – mid to low 70’s, overcast and breezy. Decided to go towards the University which has rolling hills and some elevation. Legs felt a little tired, so started out slow. Felt ok, could feel the pace progressively getting faster. By the third mile, was right on marathon pace, and made a comment about possibly slowing down but we went against it since the pace felt pretty good. 4^th mile is slowly uphill – at this point, we actually turned onto a different part of the trail which runs through a local neighborhood and behind the high school heading towards SIUE. Hit a lot of traffic over here, a ton of people were walking their babies and pets, and started to feel a little fatigue but most likely from the gradual incline. Pretty much flew on the turnaround, and was feeling ok until the 7^th mile where the rolling hills started to beat me up a bit. On the last mile, started to really feel it on the last half mile, but later found out we had picked up the pace substantially. Legs were spent post run, but could have been from not eating dinner and just being a bum all afternoon and taking a long nap. Went home, stretched, ate a 5 dolla footlong, laid in bed forever. Total mileage: 8 miles – splits were: 7:51, 7:29, 7:19, 7:24, 6:58, 7:11, 7:03, 6:49.

Tonight, easy run. Made a few schedule adjustments for running since Tim is in town this weekend and don’t want to worry about 5 a.m. long runs since we will most likely be having some fun nights :) Just signed up for the Mud Mountain 5K, looking forward to a relaxed race and being a rabbit for Timmy.