Last night, I had a dream that I was at the Krispy Kreme Challenge race. I had just ran to the tables to get my doughnuts, but I couldn’t find a way to get to the water stations and path that challengers (those who try to eat the dozen doughnuts and complete the race in an hour) go through to get their doughnut consumption verified.

There was a group of people in costume who were changing mid-race. I was panicked — Do I need a costume? Where is the path to the challenger tunnel? If I just run back to where I started will the volunteers say I cheated?

Then I woke up.

This is the first time I’ve dreamed about a race. It’s the first dream in which I recall not running because my life depended on it.

My last long run for this training session.

This week, I finally got in my last long run of this training session — a virtual 10k race that I hope to write up soon. My goal was to get negative splits, so I can practice pushing myself when my energy is low.

For me, it’s more of a mental game than physical one. My body can do all kinds of things, but my brain takes some convincing. If my mind says I can’t, my body follows its lead and fails.

I found this to be especially true during a recent deadhang challenge that I participated in. It was sponsored by OCR Beast . Basically, the challenge started you at a minute’s worth of deadhang — basically holding onto a horizontal pole and staying up in air. You gradually build the time up to a final total of six minutes.

One day of the deadhang challenge.

I don’t have a playground near my house. So I searched for different things from which to hang. I hung from our clothes line posts, rafters in the shed, the trim of doorways.

However, there were times in which I would grab onto something and it dig into my hand. I’d let go and try again, adjusting my grip. I just couldn’t will my legs to jump up to do the deadhang again. My mind and body didn’t want to get hurt again.

So I moved to another apparatus and tried again. And again. And again.

I did complete the challenge, but my inability to stick it out whenever I got hurt.

For my last long run for this training session, I had to overcome my fears of going out too fast, needing to throw up, failing, etc.

My fifth mile was my fastest but the times I posted have me a bit worried. They are slower than they need to be for my upcoming race.

We’ll see what happens I guess. It could have just been a bad run.

The rest of my training will be mostly shorter runs with some interval training.

I race better when I’m relaxed. So I’m going into taper mode a bit. I still have some hard workouts to complete, but I won’t go crazy.

Are you training for anything? Have you ever had a dream about a race? Let me know with either a comment or email.