The "why's" start creeping in

Countdown to Berlin as of today:

 3 weeks d4ays

Or

180 days

Or

25 weeks 5 days

Or

45.5% of 2022.

Started to look at more training plans, those 16 weeks ones, to choose one that would guarantee passing the finish line. 

At the moment we are building up the base, just logging miles as often as we can, together with some yoga and strength training. It is a complicated way of saying I'm legging it out of the house for runs whenever there is a chance, especially during those sweet middle mornings when the kids are at school, doing some yoga with kids on my back later on in the day, which doubles up as strength training. 

The other day I felt meh during arun and it prompted me to think why was that. The scary bit for me is that I have a habit of losing interest even in the wildest and most interesting of dreams or projects, after a while. I do not want with all my might that I decide to give up the marathon. So I meditated on it, and it comes down to a few factors:

- very likely overtraining at the moment. As much as running helps my mental health, I might be doing too much too soon. I'm a sucker for high intensity exercise and love the buzz of pushing my body a lot. 

- not getting enough sleep. Too much escapist reading very late in the night. Fine, too much netflix and its friends late at night- current fixation, understanding wth is going on in Ukraine. 

- can't quite grasp in my head how would my body feel after km 20-22; I can assume a lot of things up to around that distance, but I'm a bit anxious about what will happen to my mind and body in the last third of the race. Oscillating at the moment between methodical extrapolating, really good confidence, and pure despair along with fatalistic images of my obituary (thanks mum for instilling the gift of ultra-anxiety into me, and yes it's you mum, I've done a lot of therapy, and it's you). 

- kind of ok with meta-motivations: I want to raise money for our charity, I want my kids to remember this and for it to plant a seed somewhere inside themselves (thanks mum for planting the seed of "lay-low-head-down-do-your-best-and-just-see-what-happens" into me- yes it's you mum, I've done a lot of therapy, and it's you)

So, overtraining, rest, some psychology, and motivations. So much sprouting out from that pinky promise at the traffic lights with Tara! It reminds me of a paragraph from one of my favourite books, which I had taken a photo of back in time and which I'm hoping to find and attach here. (An unexpected light, travels in Afghanistan by Jason Eliott)