make it happen

3:27:21 Getting Closer

Columbus Marathon yesterday. (look carefully as I was sporting a serious fu-man-chu) It was a fabulous day for a marathon. A cool morning but warming up to the lower 70s by the afternoon. Near perfect racing conditions. Physically it was the best I've felt running a marathon. I started off close to what I wanted. About 15 seconds behind the pace I wanted to finish at. It's difficult to do that because at the start of the run you are so hyped up and you know you have so far to go that you automatically bolt out for those first 3 miles or so. I've run the first few miles of a race 45 seconds FASTER than I had anticipated without even knowing. "You can't win a race in the first few miles, but you can lose a race." The first 14 miles I was on pace to quailfy for the Boston Marathon which is still my ultimate goal and one I will accomplish before it's all said and done. To do that you must run a 3:10 marathon and average 7:15 per mile. At mile 15 I could feel that I wasn't going to qualify. My body just hadn't been conditioned properly and I didn't have the energy to keep that quick of a pace, so I dropped down into my training stride which is significantly slower just to enjoy the run and the race. If that would have happened at mile 20 or so I think I could have gutted it out, but not at 15. I picked up the pace again at mile 22 and finished strong. So, I'm proud of the first 14 and of the last 4, now if I can just work on those middle few. What effected the slowdown: old running shoes. I'm running on shoes I ran in last year because I just couldn't free up the $$ for new ones, so I'm going today to buy some new shoes and put them on a credit card which I'm proud to say I haven't used in almost a year. #2 Training. I didn't run at all 2 weeks ago for about 8 days because I got my wisdom teeth out and I think that had a drastic effect on my running. #3 run more miles. I tried a new technique for this race where you run only 3 days a week, but I didn't really do much cross training which is required. When I ran the Chicago I was running at least 5 miles a day. #4 find a training group. Run with people. This would result in being accountable for miles and just to have a group to run with would be more enjoyable. So... I made up my mind at about mile 18 yesterday that I would try to find another marathon to do this year with the above changes made. So on November 20th I'll be running the Philladelphia Marathon in hopes to Qualify for Boston. We'll see...

posted by Brian R Dunn @ 8:43 PM