Comment

Comment by Med on September 13, 2011 at 1:14pm

For a lot of people to finish IS to win. If that helps them get off the couch, then good on them! For me, though, I want to push myself a little. And just to be clear, I'll never win anything other than maybe my age group at a local 5k, so I don't mean my number versus the other guy's number, but my number versus what I think I'm capable of. :)

Acid - that's great. I guess it'll teach you to have that cup of coffee before looking at a pacing chart! Alas that will likely never happen to me: I get a little obsessive, and I can tell you not only the average pace I need for a goal time from 5k to 26.2 but most of the splits I'd want as well... I need a life. ;)

Comment by acidrock23 on September 13, 2011 at 6:52am

Re "numbers", I've read a bunch of running books, including several of the Jeff Galloway books and he's a proponent of "to finish is to win" mental approach. At the same time, he ran something like a 2:12 marathon during his career so he's not by a slacker either?

My aunt ran with him as a pacer one year and she described him as "nuts" as he was "running all over the place, stopping and starting and talking to people", I guess most of the way which, if you were wanting a metronomic robot to chase, would probably not be very helpful.

It helped me that I looked at the "pace/ time" chart at 5:00 AM on race day and looked at the wrong column that made me think I had to run like 8:30something to make 2 hours. The pacers reinforced this as they ran about 8:43 for 8 miles or so, which is where I lost them, and I settled back to a couple of miles in between 9:00 and 9:30 and then had a long downhill to the finish. Somewhere in there I looked at my Garmin and realized I had a couple of miles to go and about 20 minutes and was like "hey wait, you are looking at the wrong chart [in my head...very fuzzy by that time...hee hee...].

I'm still a little unsure about the pace strategy for the marathon. My pacing had been flagging a bit as I think I was getting a bit burnt out. The 1/2 was good to have done. I'll run the 20 this weekend and see how that goes and figure something out? 10:00/ mile seems pretty practical and will get me in the 4:20s. For a long time my goal was to have the first number be a 4 so that will be good??

Comment by Mike on September 12, 2011 at 10:31pm

@med. when ever I run I keep my eye on my pace trying to do a little better than my planned pace. Every race has a goal - to beat my last time. It's never "just a number" but it should be.

Comment by acidrock23 on September 12, 2011 at 2:43pm

I hate it when they do that! I was sort of apprehensive w/ this race, as there's a grass horse track there but we just ran onto the ramp leading to the track and had maybe .2 miles to run for the finish at that point.

Comment by offroadaction on September 12, 2011 at 2:30pm

Awesome job Acid! As I rounded the last corner on Saturday, I could see the finish line about 500 feet ahead. Then they guided us back into the woods for almost another km. Talk about disheartening! It really made that last little loop pretty tough...

Comment by offroadaction on September 12, 2011 at 2:26pm

Mike and Med, I tried Eload gel this time and I was really happy with it. It did seem to help out. It has 0% sugar, so I thought I would give it a shot. I agree with you on the PowerBar...that is what I was using in the past and it tasted horrible! I still have one sitting in the cupboard. Jerry, I saw the Hammer gels at the store. Maybe I will give that a shot in the future, but I will try Eload a few more times.

Comment by Med on September 12, 2011 at 2:01pm

Heh. You know, I think anyone who says "it's just a number" has never really pushed themselves at a race. :)

Comment by acidrock23 on September 12, 2011 at 1:58pm

Yup! I have sniffed around 2:00 hours for a long time. I know it's *just* a number but when I was hurtling down the home stretch, I couldn't help but think "it's gonna be close..."

Comment by Med on September 12, 2011 at 12:32pm

Offroad - I like Gu or Hammer. I DO NOT like PowerBar. YMMV :)

Acid - Great job! Is that a PR?

Comment by Mike on September 11, 2011 at 12:59pm

Good job. I know it always feels good to have completed a big race no matter how well you do. And if you can finish feeling good then that's what really counts.

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