The psychological battle

I think I'm entering what proper sports people call the hard yards in terms of training.
After my 14.3 mile mega training three hour run last weekend I knew I had to give myself a few days to get over it.
But something weird started to happen during the week. As the days past I started to feel like I couldn't go out running again ever. I felt like if I tried to hit the pavements, new Asics or not, I wouldn't have the strength in my legs to keep going because all my energy had been drained from the Sunday run.
Then I started to feel massive doubts about my ability to run the marathon in a couple of months, despite how well the training is going and how far ahead of schedule I am. My terrible maths calculated that at my current pace it would take about 8 hours probably to complete and frankly there's no way I could keep going for 8 hours at anything, let alone running.
It was awful, all of a sudden everything seemed to be impossible. Then I started to blame myself for not taking training more seriously earlier last year and laying down a better foundation to build on.
It got to the point that on Thursday, which is when I did my next run, I wondered if I'd even be able to go for a mile without having to stop for breath and that all the work I'd done in the past three or four months had been totally undone in a few days.
All very odd.
It's like the battle has become psychological as well as physical now. I guess this is why sportsmen and women talk about belief all the time and why the M People tune Search for the Hero is always played at running events, because I'm finding that I'm having to dig deep like never before to keep going and keep the belief in myself and my ability.
Having run further and for longer than ever before, I still felt like I was so far off where I need to be that I just let doubt creep in and undermine everything. Plus the crappy February weather hasn't really been helping and I am so bored of the dark and the cold. In fact I think I was suffering some kind of come down after Sunday's run because all week I was feeling really down, like everything was rubbish and I was rubbish and I couldn't achieve anything worthwhile and all I wanted to do was curl up under the mattress and go to sleep until the summer.
On Thursday evening I went out for a run and felt 100 times better as a result, everything was possible again and the future was mine to take and do whatever I wanted with.
Those natural endorphins are really powerful I have to say, as was the uplifting Nick Cave tune I had turned up to 11 on my iPod, There She Goes, My Beautiful One. If you know the tune, you'll know what I mean, if not, go get and have a listen. I think you'll agree.
I also worked in some speed training after some good advice from a couple of regular readers, so thanks John and Dave for that. If nothing else it made me feel better to think I was doing something positive about the speed issue.
Now I'm looking forward to tomorrow's scheduled two hour run, as long as it doesn't rain. But I can really see what people mean about the addictive nature of something like this. I felt like a smackhead going cold turkey for days after Sunday, but Thursday night's fix brought me right back up again and I was on top of the world. Difference is I don't have to mug old ladies for £10 to get my fix, well, not these days anyway! (Or ever, honest).