Blaming my running woes on my Central Governor

Stop everything you are doing and immediately go to the Marathon Talk podcast (in iTunes or www.marathontalk.com) and download episode 47.
Marathon Talk is my favourite running podcast, hosted by Englishmen Martin Yelling and Tom Williams. Williams’ interview with exercise researcher Professor Tim Noakes in episode 47 is one of the most fascinating sport interviews I’ve ever heard.

Noakes talks about a protection mechanism called the Central Governor. His Central Governor theory states your brain will not let you run until your muscles fail. Noakes points out that our ancestors would have been wiped out had they run to exhaustion and collapsed while chasing down their prey.
So, during exercise your brain decides how hard you will go to allow you to make it to the finish line without dying (or damaging yourself). When your muscles feel fatigued it is not because they are actually that fatigued. The sensation is generated by your brain to get you to stop.
Ever had a second wind toward the end of in a race or a long run? It could be your Central Governor, realising the torture will stop soon, sending a signal to let you continue until the finish line... where you promptly collapse.
I find this particularly fascinating in the light of my comeback after breast cancer treatment. I interviewed two doctors for an article on exercising after breast cancer and both said there was no reason women who exercised before breast cancer couldn’t get back to the same levels of exercise afterward. Yet I find I don't have that extra kick I used to have. Is my body still recovering from treatment? Is my body just dealing with starting from scratch again after a long period of no exercise at all during treatment? Or, is my Central Governor protecting my body after being battered for months by cancer treatment to make sure I don’t cause it any more harm?
Noakes says you cannot override the Central Governor but it is influenced by things like motivation, temperature and lactic acid in your muscles. As you get fitter your Central Governor will see that your biochemical and physiological pathways have become more efficient and you can cope with more exercise. The Central Governor will also reset quickly if you expose your body to demanding exercise.  
I’m going to call my Central Governor...Bob. And Bob? I’d really like you to butt out of my races and long runs from now on. Thanks.