Losing the motivation to run

I think I remember this time last year when I was training for the half-marathon. The mileage was getting high, and the motivation to do the runs on the weekdays was waning. Lucky for me, on Tuesday we did a mile run (which was actually pretty awful since I hate running fast, but better than 5 miles, that's for sure!). I ran the mile in 8 minutes, 10 seconds. I don't remember how fast I did my first mile assessment in at the beginning of the training program, so I'll have to look back and check that out in my blog. I'm pretty sure I did a high 8 minute. I know for sure I at least went faster this time.

Today I have 5 miles that I'm supposed to run. I have absolutely no motivation to do it. That probably means I won't get 5 whole miles in, but I'll try my best. Lucky for me, I have to run twice this weekend, so I think I should be ok. Just two more weeks and the mileage starts to drop! Maybe I'll have more motivation then.

I've started looking into massages. The plan is to get a massage the day after the race. So I'll hobble to work and probably try to sit as much as possible that day, and then I'll hobble to get a massage. It's my reward for running 26 miles. That, and maybe some pizza after the race. Eric and I talked about going to Ci-ci's for the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet (since I will have burned about 4,000 calories within the 26.2 miles and I always crave pizza after my long runs), but I expressed concern about my ability to get up and walk to the buffet to get the pizza. Eric said he'd do it for me...how nice of him! He'll be like my little food runner. We'll see how I feel that day.

The Heart Mini Marathon is this weekend. I'm going to shoot for around one hour and 30 minutes. It's a 9.3 mile race. Since I was running under 10 minute miles for 18 miles, I feel like I should be able to handle that for half of that distance. Everyone keeps talking about the hills, which kind of scares me, but I'll survive. It's good training for the Pig, I guess!

Based on my mile time, the race time predictor says I should be able to run the marathon in about four hours, 34 minutes with a 10:27 pace. I'm thinking I may be able to go a little faster than that, depending on how my legs cooperate on race day. My mile is not the fastest thing in the world...and I've mentioned before that I'm a much better endurance runner than fast runner, so I think the prediction may be slightly inflated due to my poor performance on a mile run. I'm shooting for 4 hours, 30 minutes. I think it's a good goal. We'll see!