Motivated By March Madness

I don't know if this is motivating or stupid, and maybe it's both! I use Dailymile as a way to log workouts and connect with and be inspired by other runners. While I know nothing about basketball and care about it as much as the amount of knowledge I have about the sport (zero!), Dailymile was having a Men's and Women's March Madness Challenge. Basically, Round 1 was open to all, and we had 6 days to log as many miles as possible. 150 women participated. They took the top 32, of which I was one (!), to Round 2.

In Round 2, the 32 women had 3 days in which to post their fastest 5K. So Friday night I went out and ran a hard 5K, with a slow slow warmup and cooldown to meet my miles needed in that workout. Yes, not my smartest move since all miles in this training schedule should be run at a slow pace, and not smart with a half marathon on Sunday, but it sure did motivate me to get outside and get those miles in.

Now I've advanced to Round 3 with the top 16 women. We have 3 days to log as many miles as possible again before they narrow it down to the top 8 for the next round. I had an advantage since the challenge started today and I ran a half marathon this morning.

It also will probably determine how I schedule my runs for the week. Frontloading slow miles this week won't be a bad idea since when Saturday comes I'll be running 15.5 miles at my first trail 25K! So this Round 3 is still motivating me, and because the pressure is on to log miles, it's forcing me to make sure I run them very slow to keep myself injury-free, and that's always a good thing.

Wish me luck! Round 4 is based on 10K time and I'm down to some very fast, high mileage ladies, including my friend Blanca, who have this in the bag. While I know I can't win the whole thing, it's been fun, and motivating, to make it this far.