Up until 40 minutes before training Fat Lad, Paulie, James and the returning Andy were coming training. Paulie and James didn't show and Fat Lad phoned me to say he'd been asked to take on an U12 game at short notice. So it was down to me and Andy.
I arrived early and did a lap of our usual field, on my own, in 3m 52s which isn't shabby. When Andy arrived he was pleasantly surprised to hear that I was happy to go around again. After some umming and ahhing we set a target of 3m 30s for the lap which would represent a new personal best for me. And off we went heading out around the field, as we got the top of the hill, Andy asked me to take the pace up a bit and then as we hit the flat run-in, the pace went up again.
As we stopped, having completed the full circuit, I looked at my watch and was amazed to see that it had taken just 3m to get around. Now that was just outstanding and Andy had a wry grin on his face. He told me later that he had completed 6 laps in the same pace just a few weeks before. I would have struggled to get another few hundred metres at that pace nevermind 5 laps!
So it was time to work and Andy promised to take account of my game on Saturday but laughed off my claim that I had worked at Thursday's charity game. He started with a simple shuttle run to the edge of the penalty area, back to the goal line, to the halfway line, back to the goal line, to the far goal line and then back to the original start point. I was gasping at the end of the first run and worse by the end of the second.
It was then that Andy started working my mind as well as my legs/lungs/heart. He's identified, as others have stated in the past, that I have a mental barrier when it comes to running. I convince myself that I can't run the distance and/or pace and once I've done that, I prove it to myself by not running the distance or pace and falling short of my target. I also set too ambitious targets over time periods which are too long.
So Andy got me focusing on shorter, easier to attain goals and then he completely messed with my mind by changing the routine. We went to the goal line and back, half way line and back, penalty area and back - a complete reversal of the first few runs. He got me looking around instead of focusing on the grass 5 m in front of me. He got me to try laughing instead of grimacing. I even found myself quoting lines from The Dark Knight (well I did watch it all the way through 3 times last week). He then chopped it up again so we covered the same distance in roughly the same time (the pace felt the same too). After 7 repetitions (we rested after 4), we set off on what was to be the last run ...
Andy hadn't warned me though that we would be running for what felt like forever. In fact we did a full 3 repetitions before he asked if I felt like doing a fourth. By this time I was digging deep (but I think maintaining the pace) and thought, why not ... it can't kill me. I finished the last one and then Andy told me we'd done around 1400m in just over 6m 30s. One last surprise ... I was still standing up, breathing reasonably well and my legs felt ok. So I had to ask myself, what is stopping me from running like that next week, the week after and on the day itself?
So I'm off to the track on Tuesday armed with my new mental tricks and a target of 2250. Anything above that is a bonus. Calories 722, max hr 98% (ouch!), average 80%
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