Alan Bennet wrote:
Hello, nice thread. Rather than bore myself with the usual intro, I thought I would revisit the theme of week 2.
The biggest (40+) master's mistake I made was that first race. Of course, I knew it was a mistake before I did it. Not a deep down, back of the mind sort of mistake, but an up front, verbalized mistake: "No, I don't race."
"It's only a half marathon. I've seen you running, you can do it easy," said the one-time friend who came up with this idea. I explained: "You don't understand. I know myself, I'm way too competitive, I'll get carried away." What do you get with a medium talented, above average compulsive, over the top competitive person who likes to run but already has another outlet for his neuroses? An 18-20 mpw fitness runner who times every mile, logs every run, and stretches religiously.
There was some more back and forth, with me holding my ground well, until Mr. Machiavelli found a good ploy: "I need you there to motivate me." I fell for that one. Yeah, I'm a sucker.
A half marathon calls for some training. Exactly how much training I wasn't quite sure, because when I learned my running the half marathon hadn't been invented yet. Still, I knew that the absolute minimum longest run for a marathon was 13 miles. So I figured 9 miles would be good for the half, but in the end I topped out at 11, and 29 total for that week. Meanwhile, my soon to be ex-friend was becoming scarcer and scarcer. I became worried that I wasn't motivating him, and he was going to suffer if he didn't get in the miles. I finally managed to flag him down on the street just two days before the race. "I can't go," he said. "I have exams next week at the police academy and need to study." That's the problem with kids these days -- they never learned to properly burn the candle at both ends.
You would think I had just been let off the hook! However, there's this "foolish consistency" thing that R. W. Emerson mentioned. I had already sent in the *money*, and more importantly I had been *training* for more than three months. This is as bad as it gets: knowing that I should *NOT* do something, and at the same time knowing that I inevitably *WILL* do that very thing.
It wasn't fun. In my inexperience, I seriously carbo-overloaded the night before: a giant 16-inch mushroom pizza PLUS a one-pound bag of oatmeal cookies. More inexperience... I was completely clueless that big races provide portapotties at the start. They must have been somewhere on a side street, because I never saw them. Due to these issues, I went out extra-conservatively, and only settled in after mile seven when I realized I was not going to explode on the course. So I was actually fine. But I wasn't FAST. And to have a good experience, I needed to be FAST.
It ain't over when it's over.
Hey, did you know that you can check your race results online? And did you know that they have these things called "age groups", so instead of feeling hopeless compared to the #1 finisher, you can feel competitive against some other slow guy? (Best for my ego not to compare myself to the gals.) And did you know that if you train even harder than before, you can actually improve and run faster and finish even higher in these slow guy age group standings? And did you know that training too hard can get you injured? And did you know that it can take years of frustration to go from being an overweight, crippled, zero mpw guy, back to being a happy, healthy 18-20 mpw guy?
Actually, that last part isn't true, because there is no going back. I'll never be that 18-20 mpw guy again. Right now I am at 70 mpw, and looking for an easily do-able 3:19 at the next Flying Pig, which will be a BQ by a lot. Assuming I don't get injured.
Cap City 2004 - my biggest mistake indeed.