Doubts in Myself

I was talking with some friends of mine while running, and the topic of blame came up.  When you don't do well in a race, do you tend to blame other things--like the weather or the course, or do you "own up" to the failure?  I think I do some of both.

I definitely can find reasons to blame myself if I don't do well.  The task of training rested on my shoulders over the last 10 weeks.  I did many things well, but I see lots of things I didn't do so well either.  Over the past few days, I've had a running list in my head of all of the things I don't think I did right this time around during training.  I guess this is the list I will pull from to get my excuses if I don't do well next week!

1. Lack of hill training.  My training program called for 6 hill workouts, and I did a grand total of 2 of them.  And the course I am running has two sections of big uphills.  I don't think that is smart.  One of the only workouts that I skipped this time around was 7xhills, but it was when Rick was out of town so I felt like I had an excuse.

2. Shortened training schedule.  I started training with only 10 weeks to go until the marathon, so I just omitted the first 7 weeks of training.  I wasn't doing nothing, but I wasn't doing the quality workouts that the plan called for either.  On bad days I question whether not doing those 7 weeks will come back to haunt me.

3. Running roughly 10 less miles per week than called for by the program.  I could not run on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I settled for doing workouts on the elliptical machine.  That cut my mileage by roughly 10 miles a week.  And that made my highest mileage week only in the 40's.  That seems like too little to me, but I know that most of the rest of the runs were good, quality miles.

4. Not running a single 20-miler all the way through.  I mentioned this a couple of posts back.  I really think allowing myself to stop in these runs could be a problem for me race day.  I haven't forced myself to push through a long run.

5.  Eating issues during the run.  I have struggled with being able to eat on runs and having similar fuel to race day to train with (I actually don't know what is on the course--they just sent us a change--and I don't know what I will carry yet or when I will plan to eat it.)  So race day, I will be winging it and hoping my stomach doesn't revolt.  I've developed a pickier stomach more recently and have had to force things down in races and runs.  A smarter strategy would have been to test different foods/drinks out during my long runs.  I failed to do that.

I feel better just sharing these things.  No training plan is perfect, but I do see these flaws in mine.  I like to think I am really tough and disciplined, but some days I question whether I really am disciplined enough to be a marathoner.  I would like to follow a training program all the way through and also practice race day fueling more next time I train.  I think this would help me feel more prepared and quiet some of these pre-race nerves.