Does the retraining ever end?

So, evidently, Team in Training has a 'no ipod' mandate. Apparently I'm supposed to 'talk' to my teammates. Um, don't they know I'm running?

Me and my ipod running together.

I kid, I kid. I know how the Team works and I'm totally down to work with my teammates, but learning to run without music is going to be a training in and of itself. I'm so used to singing along to my favorite songs, and having them there as a nice distraction from what I am actually doing. Not to mention, the songs that bring me out of the slump. So this will be a new experience and a new training for me. We did a pace assessment last weekend, and it was my first 3 mile run without my ipod and I can safely say it was the longest 3 miles of my life.

I feel like for every run I've done, I'm retraining myself in one way or another. On my very first run almost 2 years ago, I was training just to run - period. I remember hitting 1 mile and thinking I was going to die. I was ready to call an ambulance because I was convinced that somehow I had collapsed a lung. After 1 mile. Really. That first run turned into training for The Human Race 10k, which was longer than I have ever run in my life, so from training myself to run at all, I began training myself to run for distance. As I've said before, I was a sprinter in my younger years and didn't understand the mechanics of running distance. I found myself hitting a hard wall at 4 miles and didn't understand why I just couldn't pass that threshold. It was pointed out to me that I should probably slow down and I might be able to go longer. Wouldn't ya know, it worked. After that race, I found myself in an interesting predicament...I had nothing to train for, so no real reason to run. So it was at this point I began training myself just to run, even though I didn't have to. Obviously that wasn't going to last long, so I did sign up for another 10k, the hilly Firecracker Run! As soon as I got into this, I got pregnant with Tre, and I began the worst training of all - running while pregnant, nauseous, tired and sore. This was probably the worst 10k run of my life. By the end, I thought my hips were dislocated and I wanted to throw up, but was too dehydrated. But I did it, I don't know why I did it, but I did. After a little break for child birth, I began running again and was seriously disturbed that I was not only starting over in my fitness, but I was working with a body that just want not mine. I would like to introduce everyone to the idea of 'slinky stomache'. Whatever you're imagining, that is exactly how it felt. Since that's what I had to work with, I had to retrain my entire body. This was extremely hard. Because I had no core muscles, everything ached, but my back took the worst burden. I remember getting to 2 miles, and feeling like I had just accomplished something amazing. And really, it kind of was. I decided to sign up for the Firecracker 10k, the course that had defeated me just a year earlier, even though I had no business training for that distance in such a short amount of time, with the bad shape I was in. If you're not familiar with the course, all you need to know is that the first 3 miles are up a mountain. Enough said. Added to this, this was the first time I was training on my own without a running partner. It's extremely difficult to motivate yourself to get up and do the runs, when there is no one else counting on you, so I had to train my brain that I was committed to this for myself and that had to be enough. After accomplishing that, I decided to take it to the next level and began training for my first half marathon. This training was different than I had ever done before because I really had to learn to pace myself.  And finding new routes to span the miles was a challenge. Also, finding the time to put in to the long runs was not easy with 3 kids, my job and my always working husband. My long runs took upwards of 2 hours, instead of the hour runs I was used to. I really had to change my mindset. I knew I could fudge my way through 5-6 miles, but making the commitment to 13 was a whole different thing.

I find myself retraining again. I've done the miles and I know how to work it into my life, so now I just have to learn to do it with a team, and not as a solo runner. Before I would have thought that this was easier, because I had other people motivating me, but now that I'm trained myself into a self-sustaining mindset, I feel like I'm starting over. I know that once this run is over, there will be a new challenge and new retraining effort on the horizon...