Running with confidence

Spent 57:30 this morning running my beach trail route, for a total of around 14K. The plan was to run it at around 4:06/k (or 6:35/mile) pace. My pacing was all intuitive and I think I was pretty close. Maybe just a hair over the intended pace. That's my impression anyway. I ran 29:08 out and 28:22 back, the back always being the quicker leg. It was a pretty decent run, and I was happy with the way I felt afterwards, which was a feeling that the run wasn't as taxing as this sort of run was not that long ago.

I received this link on self confidence yesterday, and it's a pretty good read*. It's interesting how inter-related goals, confidence, and the like are, whether it's athletics, business, or how you carry yourself day to day.

An excerpt:

Tip: Balanced Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is about balance. At one extreme, we have people with low self-confidence. At the other end, we have people who may be over-confident.

Good self-confidence is a matter of having the right amount of confidence, founded in reality and on your true ability. With the right amount of self-confidence, you will take informed risks, stretch yourself (but not beyond your abilities) and try hard.

By contrast, if you are under-confident, you’ll avoid taking risks and stretching yourself; and you might not try at all. This means that you’ll fail to reach your potential. And if you’re over-confident, you’ll probably take too much risk, stretch yourself beyond your capabilities, and crash badly. You may also find that you’re so optimistic, that you don’t try hard enough to truly succeed.

So, self-confidence needs to be founded on reality: realistic expectations, your skills and experience, and the effort and preparation that you are willing to put in to reach your goal.

Thanks to Lorne for the link.