Answers Found On The Road

It's been 2 weeks since the Colorado Marathon, and I was thinking about another one in Steamboat before cooler heads prevailed and I opted to just run the Bolder Boulder, and do some local 5 and 10K stuff as I headed into the summer and get ready for my next marathon training session to begin twords the middle July. One thing that was said to me when I thought about running Steamboat was that if I was serious about it, I needed to figure out what went wrong in Colorado, and while out for a 5 mile run yesterday, I found out just that.



I did all the miles necessary to run a complete marathon, probably more than needed, where I fell short was in the intensity of those workouts. As I tried to get ready for that first marathon, I lived by the motto that I only ran fast on the days I was supposed to. I felt like it kept me healthy, got me to the starting line in one piece. My speed workouts were always good, but the longer stuff, and even the non speed days were very easy. After having very good success with that at PF Chang, I went the same route for the Colorado Marathon, although at this point I believe that what I came up with was 1 speed workout per week, (or hills), one long run per week, and 4 days of junk miles. Just miles is all they were. I never really pushed myself as hard as I could, for fear of injury. And my body adjusted to the mileage, and only really got taxed for a couple workouts a week. Thus explaining how I could run borderline 70 miles per week average and show almost no signs of weight loss, my body physically not changing, ect. My diet was almost identical to the training I did for Phoenix, but obviously with much different results. My body was ready to run 26.2 miles. It just was not ready to run it at the pace I set out to do. The shitty part of that is, that I still probably could have run a 3:25 marathon, if I had run 7:20 miles instead of 7:00 minute ones instead. It wasn't the distance that got me, it was the speed in which I was trying to cover that distance in that cooked my goose. I recall the early days of my running last summer, where it seemed i couldn't get healthy, and a big part of that was that I would run as fast as I could on a daily basis, and my body wouldn't hold up to it. This round, I was hardly running fast at all, so there has to be some middle ground somewhere for me to find. Which I will I think during my down time over the next couple months.



The other thing that came to me on that run was about race goals. I mentioned that I would like to race Boulder in around 42:something. I did it in 46:something last year, but it was one of my worst races. That goal is probably one of the more realistic ones I've set in recent memory. I think about my 2 marathons, although I think that BQ'ing in Co was not that far of a stretch when I set it, when I was thinking BQ in AZ, since it was my first one, that may have been over the top a little. To PR the Horsetooth Half in April, which I missed by 29 seconds on one of the hardest couses I've ever done, may have been a stretch as well, due to the elevatiojn changes of the race. Anyways I got to thinking. How many times have I ever walked from a race and done what I set out to do. I ran my first 5k and finished it, that's one. I ran my second and finished faster than my first. That's two. I ran my third and was faster than my second, that's three, but also that got me in the 20:something range and every other 5k since except when I placed in my age group at the Cinco Cinco 5k and got a plaque for it, has been the sub 20 quest which I havent obtained. But we'll say 4 times on 5k's have I done what I wanted. Finishing races after my exprience in Boulder last year is no longer an accomplishment. I had no doubts that at the begining of any of my halfs, or even my two fulls that I would cross the finish line. For me that is not even something that crosses my mind. Although happy with my time at my first Horsetooth Half last year, I didn't make the time I wanted. Hell I didn't make the time I wanted last year, this year. Under 1:35 was last years goal, to PR was this years, and neither came true. The day in November last year when I did set my half PR, I did accomplish what I set out to do that day. So that's five times. And really that's it. I went through the 5k mark at the Turkey Trot in Denver in under 20 minutes, but they didn't do a 5k split, and I ran that in about 26 minutes, which for me was smoking fast, but I had no real goal. So there we go. I have raced 21 times since Super Bowl Sunday in 2007, and 5 times I have crossed the finish line not acheiving what I was looking for, and 3 of those were not even very specific. I'm left with a half marathon PR, and a plaque for a race that I coveted, although I think it only ranks #5 in my fastest 5k's.

So the question becomes: Does this drive me to race faster than I ever have, or does it begin to break me down? I have a little bit of a history when racing that I would run well for a race, then not so good the next one. Like I might over enjoy my sucesses until a failure knocked me on my ass again. A little taste of success in Boulder may be just what the doctor ordered.

But did I set a realistic goal time, lol...

Happy start to the week everyone.