I am particularly excited about this year's Chicago Marathon. First of all, I know so many people running it. A bunch of people from Nike, a friend from high school, a sorority sister from college, and my friend John, whom I helped to run his first marathon in Portland last year. I kicked off my training cycle with a nice 16-miler. It was slow because of heat, fatigue, and whatever other excuses I want to apply. I did it at a 9:21 pace, which is a little slower than I'd hoped, but sometimes you just have those runs where you fight for every step. Luckily, Pie rode the bike along with me, so there was good conversation.
When I got back, I had a text from John, who was comparing his finish in last year's Portland marathon to the Boston qualifying times. He said, "If I was 80 years old, I would have missed the qualifying times by almost an hour." Then, "I wouldn't even have qualified if I was a 90 year old woman," and finally, "I'd still have to shave off half an hour." Funny.
This time around, I'm adding to my 3 days of running a 4th day of barefoot squatting, toe-ga and jumping rope. I'm going to get my feet in the best shape of my life, and let that goodness flow on up the kinetic chain.
Thank you for this post. I just recently started back running after years of being away. I have spent many of these runs trying to run as fast as I "could". Not just "could" as in at my limit. Even worse, "could" as in the speed I "could" run 10 years ago. After reading this I am thrilled to say I put in an honest run today and got so much out of it including great work in my last 2 miles instead of wilting and wishing I was done.
ReplyDeleteHi Joel! I think it's important to run for "feel" as well as for speed. When I'm in training for a race, I definitely keep a log and have very specific time targets, but I try to allow for deviation for fatigue, soreness, weather, or whatever mitigating circumstances. To dig a little deeper, I think if the time targets were all easy to hit, the training plan wouldn't be hard enough (and if I'm not hitting any of them, I am being overly ambitious). The luxury we have as amateurs is not to have anyone really care how fast we go, other than ourselves!
DeleteMy biggest obstacle with marathon training has been pacing, and that makes me in a big majority. It's hard to stay consistent. I think one of the reasons I've done more than one marathon is that I keep learning something every time. I'm learning my reliable paces at various distances, and I like testing them. When I do better I feel great. When I don't, I think it's all "money in the bank" toward the inevitable progress. Every mile gets you stronger, even if it's feeling like you're running on bricks that day. I'm glad to have encouraged you!
FWIW, I run 3 times a week, and try to have a purpose for each. One is speedwork (pickups of various distances, usually at the track), one is tempo (medium distance at a prescribed pace - sometimes I substitute hills for this, which is kind of a cop-out, but I like it), and long run, de-emphasizing tempo a little bit. I'll put my week's runs up this weekend. (Thanks for reading!)