It's All in Your Head...Or IS It?

I'm sure you're familiar with that saying "it's all in your head" - the cynic in me believes that's true for a lot of things. For example, I've been taking fish oil caplets (blech, ptooey) for four months now. My primary reason for taking them was to get the heart healthy Omega-3's, since I don't eat seafood of any kind. When I was considering getting some fish oil (blech, ptooey), I was also looking at some glucosamine, as my knees were kind of bothering me (this was late last year), and I'd heard that glucosamine was good for your joints. Well, I was told by several people that fish oil would help my joints as well as my heart, so that's what I ended up buying. I didn't connect that the fish oil really did anything for my knees, although they did stop hurting. But who knows, maybe they would have stopped hurting anyway...maybe I was just doing some particular exercise that strained them a bit. Long story short (I know, too late) - my knees hadn't been hurting until this week. I blamed it on too much running (which I still think I overdid) but you know what? I've been out of fish oil for about two weeks now. Coincidence? Hmmmmm. I guess I'll find out when I finally remember to get to GNC and buy some more.

Here's another "it's all in your head" thing. I've had some energy products lying around - GU and Clif Shot Bloks to be exact. These are supposed to give you energy during a long run - apparently after about 45 minutes, your glycogen stores are depleted and these sugary substances are a quick way to keep you going. The dieter in me looks at these as 100 calories of pure sugary carbs - and why would I want to waste ingesting 100 calories of a pretty gross substance (seriously, GU is a thick sugary gel) when I am running to burn calories?!? Plus, I've managed to run for 45 minutes several times and haven't keeled over, so really - do I need these?

But, with the duathlon coming up, I knew that I was going to have to have something between the two 5K's to keep me going, so before last Sunday's run, I tried a GU in their Espresso Love flavor - and it was about as oogy as I figured it would be. To mask that taste, I had a couple of the Shot Bloks in their Black Cherry flavor. Now those were good - it was like eating athletic gummy candy...and I am an athlete and need my special athlete's candy (don't I wish this were true)! I washed everything down with a few sips of water and set out for my run. Which started off normal for me - precisely at .13 (yes, just past the first one-tenth of a mile) I wondered what the hell I was doing and how soon I could stop. You might think I'm joking, but sadly, this happens every time I run. As usual, I got past that little self-imposed hurdle and kept on running. And I have to say that it was a great run. I felt really good, even though the humidity was really high and I was sweating like a pig glistening with a healthy glow. Was it the energy gel? I have a hard time believing that it was (we have established that I'm pretty cynical, right?). But let me just say this - tomorrow, before each 5K that I'm going to run, I will be having my athlete's candy - guilt-free - and I will run with unbridled energy! At least, that's the plan.
I think the route for this 5K looks really long - much longer than the other 5K's that I've run. But a 5K is 3.1 miles, so they all have to be the same, right? Here is yet another thing that is all in my head - the idea that this route is so much longer than any other 5K. It's not. I know I'm feeling this way because I have to run it twice. So in that aspect, yes - it is long. But with my candy energy gels, I can do it. I just need to brainwash myself into believing it!