Visualizations at their finest................................

It was kind of warm yesterday afternoon when I went out to do my run. The hot pavement reminded me of the parking lot of Notra Dame football stadium. What?

The race that I will be running this Saturday ends on the fifty yard line of the stadium. It will be the third time I have participated in the race.

The first time I did the race, what did I know about running let alone racing? I was thrilled to cross the finish line and all I wanted was to have my picture taken holding my shoes that I had just put the five hundredth mile on (my first pair ever).

The second time I had read a book on using visualization to help you run a better race. One was suppose to go over the race course in their mind, picturing themselves going fast without effort, or however one wanted the race to go. I did this over and over, paying particular attention to a portion of the race that is uphill and that I remembered as being very difficult.

On race day, I took off and the visualization seemed to be working great. I seemed to just fly up that hill and I felt like I had all kinds of steam left when I got to the top. About five or so minutes later I knew I should be near the end of the race and I began to have these flashes of a parking lot. I couldn't quite picture what race it was from, or if I was only imagining it. Consequently I began to slow down. And then I turned a corner and THERE IT WAS! The dreaded parking lot I had just seen in my head! When I was doing my homework I had totally blanked on the parking lot, how long it had seemed and how hot it was in the sun. As it came back to me it totally took the wind out of my sails and I felt as if I ran miles rather than yards to get across it.

So yesterday, as I was doing my run, I imagined it was race day and I was flying across that parking lot, picking off runner right and left, pushing my self to go faster and faster. I told myself how great it felt to run through that parking lot, how great I felt, how the finish line was just up ahead, how proud I was for the great job I was doing.

Now all that is left is to continue to rest, fuel, and wait for Saturday morning to get here so I can run the race for real and do the same fabulous job I have been practicing doing in my head!