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Why leave anything to chance?

Why leave anything to chance? That's what I'm wondering today. A number of reasons I've gotten to this thinking and writing it down means I need to do something about it. I need to understand the problem.

I'm training for a marathon. 6 weeks into a 16 week plan. And generally it's been going well. Although I have missed some sessions albeit for legitimate reasons. But that's just the point; I can always make a reason for missing a session but really mostly it's excuses. I'd never miss my long run. It would be too many miles to miss in a week. But when it comes to other sessions I'm not so consistent. And the ones I miss the most are the technical speed sessions. I suppose I think they are the least important but while actually doing one today I realised how important they are. They are in the plan for a reason so who am I to decide to skip them? I've missed 3 out of 6 of them for various reasons and 2 other sessions on days before them meaning twice I've not trained for 3 days. Not really acceptable and also kinda leaving things to chance. All these sessions I've missed take no more than an hour to complete so really there are no excuses for 1 hour out of 24.

Two things happened this week that got me thinking. On Thursday I made a mess of my long run and had to call for support and quit early. As it happened only a quarter of a mile short which probably shows a huge lack of mental strength which is disappointing. Possibly all down to my headphones breaking and my music not working. 7 miles of listening to ones breathing is tough. I was about 2 miles from home with a lack of fuel and very close to fainting. Anyway the reasons for my failure was purely down to my own poor preparation. Which I am always so good at. Lack of proper fueling, sleep, activation exercises on the night before as well as fueling on the run and the headphones issues ended in a poor day at the office. Why would I leave those things to chance. Especially on the longest run of the plan so far. And strangely enough I just knew it wasn't going be a great day. It's just didn't feel right.
And then yesterday I ran a park run and won. A decent 5k time. My 3rd best but really not under any pressure. And it felt good. I only ran to win and once I knew that I was safely in front I coasted a bit. I'm not too worried about that. I know there'll be other times. But the one thing that definitely could have helped my 5k time would have been to stick to the plan and complete the technical speed sessions. Why would I leave that to chance?

In the last 6 miles of the marathon in which I read are the toughest I need to have no regrets. I need to have no excuses. I need to know that I did everything I possibly could to get the best time I can. And comfortably. I know it's going to hurt but I want it to hurt from trying hard rather than not training enough.

So now today when I eventually convinced myself to go out and complete my 6x800m session which actually wasn't as horrible as I expected I realised why would I leave these things to chance. Why skip a session and expect to still get fitter? Why not prepare properly for a long run? And why not do the things that are going to improve my 5k time hopefully toward a PB and also my overall marathon time.

I don't expect to do many marathons so I really need to think about making this one count.

Time to refocus and build efficiently.

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