It is very rare that I throw in the towel during a workout, particularly when the workout is giong well, but that is exactly what happened during my Saturday workout.

My current training plan is still pretty unstructured so I did not have a specific workout planned but knew I wanted to do something hard. I was traveling and could not get a workout in prior to hitting the road so knew I would be working out later in the afternoon. As a result, I wanted to do something hard but short.

I decided to do a time trial on a route I did in July. The route is 2.58 miles, so very short. I knew it would be tough to PR but completely doable and in fact thought I could possibly break 14 minutes. The problem was I did not give enough respect to the mental aspect of this workout. When I did this last time I mentally prepared myself all week whereas this time I decided at the last minute to do this workout. Sometimes this works out in your favor and sometimes it does not…this time it did not.

I went out fast and felt pretty good, in fact tried to slow down in the first mile. I ended up running the first mile about 14 seconds faster than last time. This is when doubt started creeping in despite the fast time. I expected to fade hard but my second mile was 6 seconds faster, meaning I was 20 seconds ahead with only 0.58 miles remaining.

This is when I quit. I am not sure why I quit. After I realized what I had done and that I could have just cruised in for the PR I became very pissed at myself. I stayed this way for about an hour after I finished but than started looking at the positives. 20 seconds ahead is a lot especially when you realize that you can always find a bit of speed in the last .10 mile or so. I know what I did wrong and how I could have rectified this failure. I also realized what I am capable of.

It is easy to get to high or to low based on the performance of a workout. Instead we should always assess what went well and what did not go well. We tend to get to high or to low after workouts which is expected and that is why it makes sense to really assess a workout a few hours later or even the next day.