| | In exactly 137 days at about 6 AM, I will be bleary-eyed and questioning my sanity as I make my way to the Philadelphia Art Museum to participate in the Philadelphia Marathon. These next twenty weeks will be a drawn out test of my physical and mental stamina. So in the event I end up blogging more (those who have read this blog before know my standing record of consistency on this front), expect to see more content surrounding the soreness, emotions and random tidbits about a runner's life in pursuit of a life's goal.
While I'm presenting it, I might as well share that running (and finishing) a marathon isn't my only goal. I've settled on the ambitious task of posting approximately a 3 hour 10 minute finish time (that's about 7:15 per mile). It's a lofty goal and it would qualify me to run the Boston Marathon, which may or may not be something I want to do depending on how this goes.
So I've been telling myself that I'm in 'pre-training' mode for the past six or seven weeks and it's been a little touch-and-go. The past two weeks I've been a slacker and let myself get by with few workouts, but to my credit I was initially taking a break due to some legitimate soreness/pain that I think I've determined is stress-related from the increased mileage I was posting. I'm now equipped with some snazzy shoe inserts that should alleviate some of the problem by correcting my underpronation - tendency to push off with the outside edges of my feet rather than the front of my foot - leading to unnecessary rotation in the knee. I was so excited to slip them into my running shoes - the running expert at Philadelphia Runner's Shop told me there would be a 'POP' if they fit correctly and sure enough, a 'POP' there was!
The real challenge that I've found through 'pre-training' is to maintain motivation on the weekends when I have the tendency to plan fun trips, especially over the summer. So, all in all, this pre-training has been a lot more than working up to my mileage goals: it's been about more generally preparing myself physically and mentally for actual training slated to start around the first week of August (16 weeks from marathon date).
Starting this week I'm not letting myself give in to excuses and will train everyday that I feel capable (there has to be some leeway for recovery). Suffice it to say, today was a rough, easy run. This seems like an oxymoron, but two weeks of sedentary ways have cost me dearly. My goal was to go out for 7 miles at an easy pace, which should be around 8:20/mile (I came in with 6.25 miles and I averaged 7:25/mile pace even after correcting myself part-way through).
Apart from the 90-degree heat with humidity which will slow anyone down eventually, I tend to wear myself out quickly with ambition and excitement. The challenge for me has always been keeping the pace I set out for and not allowing myself to become a competitive runner on a training day. I see a person ahead of me on the path and I want to catch them and pass them; when I come to a straightway I want to sprint to the finish; I want to run my hardest all the time (which doesn't bode well when you find yourself having to traverse the distance you've traveled already and may feel exhausted at midway). This is what made running a team sport for me in high school - we all ran together in training. Those who ever questioned the team dynamic of running, take note!
So today on the path ('the path' is the Art Museum path, which is a common route for me and others in the city), I noticed a sign. This was no unusual sign, it serves a genuine purpose, although I think that it's inaccurate now. The sign said 'Speed Limit: 5 MPH'. When I'm running, my mind craves stimulation. People often say running is boring, and I can see their point, I just give myself mental challenges every once in a while if I feel bored (thinking in Spanish; counting multiples of 6, 7 or 8; or making simple conversions). So I had chuckle at the thought that I was obviously going faster than 5 MPH - even if I made it the entire 7 miles I set out to do, I should have been done in less than an hour because I can't slow myself down to 8:00/mile, which would take 56 minutes. So how fast was I running if I was running that pace? 7.5 MPH if I was running what I was supposed to do, 8 MPH at what I was actually doing - I should have gotten a speeding ticket! This is even more ridiculous if you consider that the path has almost as many bikers as runners who must be riding in 20+ MPH range.
I guess the point to my little story there is I didn't expect to be breaking the law so much by training to run the marathon. At this rate, I should have at least 100 speeding tickets by November 23rd.
Feel free to keep tabs on me (and Chrissy - she's running, too!). We'll need all the support we can get...
Feeling - Ambitious  |
| | Posted 7/8/2008 10:19 PM - 16 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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