Mental Training

I’ll meet with Dr. Asp next week to lay out a definitive race plan and work on my mental prep.  It’s a good thing I have something scheduled – it forces me to think ahead to the race earlier than I maybe otherwise would (work and a massive house project have been consuming most of my time and mental energy lately – and likely would continue to if I don’t carve out time this weekend).

I’m going to try to segment the marathon into shorter segments (4 or so?), having specific thoughts to focus on and goals during each.  I haven’t really worked on segmenting the race before; instead, it’s been more overall race/coping thoughts, overall goals, etc.  I think this will be a good addition.

If anyone hasn’t already read, my first experience with Dr. Asp’s help was absolutely fabulous (helped that it was also my OTQ).  I’ve never been able to internalize pain like that before :).  Let’s hope he can help train me to be able to do that again!

I have a few thoughts sketched out, but thought it’d be interesting to ask here if people knew of any good resources to check out that have ideas on coping thoughts/interim race goals/etc.  Any/all thoughts, links, book suggestions welcome!
—
Other thoughts:  I glanced through the participant guide for NYC.  Holy cow… I knew it was a huge marathon, but it’s intimidating to read through all that goes into an event like this.  Drop your bags off no later than 1:30 before your wave starts, the corral closes 50 minutes to start time… this wave follows this course… etc.  In some ways, I am really thankful to be starting in the Professional wave – I’m sure it’ll be a lot less stressful as they’ll usher us to where we need to be, hopefully there won’t be a ton of standing around, etc.  I still find it very, very crazy that a marathon like NYC would want me racing for them, giving me the perks of not having to worry about all of the logistics (again, just assuming – and hoping! I am very small-town midwestern-ish in my ability to navigate big cities, and am even more brain-less the morning of a race – ask Nate!).

There was one particular thought that crept into my mind when reading through the guide.  Wave 1 starts 30 minutes after the Professional Women’s division (9:10 and 9:40, respectively).  Wave 1 has the professional men and the sub-elite men and women.  I saw that, and my immediate thought was, “I belong there”… (meaning Wave 1 instead of the professional wave)

I’m not sure why.  I am fast enough.  I am stronger, more fit, and have trained harder than ever.  Remember those 11 weeks where I averaged 98 miles/week?  Remember some of those crazy tempo workouts that I nailed?  I fully believe I’ll be able to run a new PR (it’s just a matter of how big!).  Why do I constantly doubt myself?  I corrected myself after that thought came to me, but I can tell I’m trying to convince myself I’m right – and I don’t “fully” believe it yet.  If that makes sense?

So – that will be something Dr. Asp and I talk through/work on :).