Mental diversions

London Marathon Training: Week 4 of 19
Today’s target run: 2 hour run

It's that time again...when sleeping in on a Saturday or Sunday is a thing of the past. It's only 15 weeks away from the London Marathon, and long runs are now in full force.

Boy, was it hard to get out of that warm bed this morning for the 2 hour run, especially since (1) it was below freezing all last week including today, (2) it was 6:30 am on a Sunday morning, AND(3) the roads were icy. Yes...I had to do my running this morning on the roads around the house because I needed to run early (versus later); we had matinee theater tickets in central London today and needed to get cracking. No waiting until 9 am for Kew Gardens to open...bummer..next week.

So, how does a gal stay mentally engaged when a 2 hour run is looming large on the horizon...or in this case, pre-dawn? Answer: mental diversions.

Today's mental diversion was to see how many people I could stay "good morning" to while running...those people walking their dogs, waiting for a bus, enroute to/fro somewhere, other runners, etc...and see how many of them responded with more that a blank stare or worse yet, by totaling ignoring my perfectly peppy greeting.

OK...the one other runner gets it...he said hello everytime we passed, so for the purposes of this sample poll, he was only counted once. But, he knows that I know that runners are a breed apart.

Moving on to the other early Sunday morning souls I encountered...out of 9 people that I greeted, only 3 responded. Their greetings were all very upbeat, though. 30% was realisically better than I expected, but it is on par with the similar situation I noted while living in Germany. Maybe it was the cold...the early hour of the day...or they just thought I was daft.

Then there was the pair of girls coming home in a black taxi after a night on the town...around 7:30 am...I am convinced they did not even hear me (smile).