Doubles, motivation and game theory

I've learned something curious, but surely not unique, about my own psychological approach to running over the years: When I'm planning to run twice on a given day and my motivation isn't at its highest -- and right now I'm as excited about "training" as I am to perform a D-i-Y vasectomy -- I actually have to avoid making the first run *too* substantial or risk skipping the second altogether thanks to later deciding, "Eh, this morning's effort was plenty, I'm not really working toward anything concrete." That is, I have to purposefully slack out of the gate in order to be more assured of a maximally productive day overall.

It can really be boiled down to an application of game theory in which the contestants are not different people or organizations but competing aspects my my own mind. The scheme these days looks something like this:

* If my first run is 3 miles, there is a 90 percent chance I'll head out a second time.
* 4, 75%.
* 5, 67%.
* 6, 55%.
* 7, 45%.
* 8, 33%.
* 9, 25%.
* 10, 10%.

Obviously these are ballpark estimates and the scheme doesn't account for things like improving or worsening weather over the course of the day, etc.

If any of this represents a mental problem, it's not one relating to my running itself, but to the fact that I actually sat down typed these things out and posted them publicly.