First let’s back up a few days. After my mega-hike on Sunday, I knew my legs needed some rest so I didn’t even attempt anything Monday.

Tuesday I did a 40-minute workout; I did the Kara Goucher intervals. It was very difficult as my legs were still very tired. Plus I had to avoid a slew of rude people at the gym who were uninterested in proper gym etiquette. Okay, mostly it was the people using the workout room off the track that don’t look before they start taking up the WHOLE track.

On to today. Planned was a 7 mile workout, including 5 miles at a 9:15 minute per mile pace. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I started getting nervous before workouts like this. It didn’t help that I had a really good (yet really bad) lunch yesterday that was still irking my tummy.

My warm-up started okay. I developed some pain in my shins and right knee toward the end of it, and for the first mile or so on the treadmill for the ‘fast’ part of my workout, I really thought I was going to have to quit early due to the pain.

Finally my Nike+ said ’3 miles completed’, and I thought, ‘gee, only 1/2 mile to half-way. I can do that!’ And thoughts about ‘only 1/2 mile’ got me through the rest of my workout. I did have to stop and walk to get rid of a bad side cramp, and had to stop about 3.6 miles into the 5 to take a potty break (no more huge bowls of Indian food at lunch for me during training!)

Even after my potty break, I got back on the treadmill and was unsure I could finish the 1.4 miles left…the 1/2 mile at a time was the only way I got through.

I guess I’m still facing the mental battle with myself over my ability to complete the workouts meant to prepare me to do a half-marathon at about a 2 hour pace. This will probably only get worse in the coming weeks when my tempo and interval workouts extend from 6 or 7 miles to 8 or 10 miles.

But I haven’t failed to complete any of these workouts yet.