May as well go for broke.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Being stronger and healthier is a fantastic thing and I'm thrilled to hear you're getting so much from running  the relationship between mental and physical preparation or readiness is fascinating, isn't it? I am always interested to hear your take on that - I ponder it often too. My tactic is to try and get myself out the door before I've properly had a chance to think about what I'm about to do and I count to 100 over and over as I run to give ne somerhing to focus on. Not sure how I'd manage on long runs, never done more than 10k (as yet...)  

What is the race you are training for?

I'm training for a marathon and the Point to Pinnacle later in the year, but my next race is the Sydney Half on May 21st, which I haven't specifically trained for, i.e. the distance presents no problem, but it won't be fast.

Other than a couple of physical caveats such as having a modicum of physical fitness, and hitting the wall (running out of glycogen) in long events, it is largely a mental game, yes. The whole reason for adopting the Maffetone method to training and racing was to overcome the wall-hitting problem by reducing reliance on glycogen and instead burning more fat when running. Thus far, I think I've been successful, but the truth will come out when I run my next marathon.

Whatever the outcome, the journey has been most excellent.