"Dead Last Finish is greater than Did Not Finish, which greatly trumps Did Not Start"
Of all days for me to stumble on it, today was that day. Of course, I am a little nervous about the Shamrock Half around the corner. Oh no, I'm not worried about finishing. As always, we have determined that I can and will finish the race, no matter the cost on the foot or ankle. *had to throw that in there T. It's that, on Jan 26th or so I was on track for a sub 2:10 half marathon, and now... I'm on track for a sub 2:15 half marathon. Um. Not OK with me. And yes, I KNOW it's only FIVE minutes. I know. But... still, not OK. I have to be trained for the 2:07 half, incase there is heavy wind and I have to add some time on a few miles... so I can still GET my 2:10... I'm obsessing a bit. I know this because I was up for a few hours last night breaking down my milage, my times, and my splits. I love my Garmin. Have I mentioned that today?
This week I'm going to be picking up the running, even if there is "snow". It's in air quotes because I don't actually believe in snow. Sort of like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, snow isn't something that I should be planning my life around. I have to RUN because I WANT that sub 2:10. I really do. Todays training run finished at a projected 2:14 if we'd run another 1.1 miles to make the 13.1 distance. Of course, we didn't run the extra mile, because that would be insane. And todays run was at training pace, not race pace, and on race day I doubt I'll be doing much talking.
It does make me appreciate how much my running partner du jour slowed down for me, as she will be finishing her half marathon in a sub 2 hour time. I'm actually looking at her and wondering if she'll be finishing in the low 1:50's, but we'll just have to wait and see, and I will pick up my training a bit. In other words, I'll see you all at class this week ... all week* except Fri, my rest day... and you'll additionally see me on the road picking up a few extra runs here and there...
1 comment:
Hey - have I mentioned how much I love my Garmin coupled with how much I love SportTracks? For a donation-based software, I should be on their marketing team cause I go around thinking about how cool it is. I also keep thinking about how cool it will look (and what will it look like) to take my beloved Garmin on a cruise and do laps. Will it be a zigzag? Will I outrun the ship or will it look like I'm running REALLY fast and then running just "fast"?
OH WELL.
Remember -- the adrenalin of the race will be with you. You'll run faster during the race than you do on your training runs and will have to remember to hold yourself back.
And most of all, remember to HAVE FUN! We aren't out there to save the world or get a gold medal in the Olympics. No one is going to put in your obituary that you ran a specific time in your races, but they WOULD say that she had passion and joy for running. Keep hold of the passion and joy, GF. That's why you do it.
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