Sometimes the sign of trouble is when everything goes well, you have no excuses but you still don’t do as well as you wanted. That’s what happened to me yesterday at the San Francisco Half Marathon.
I went into the race realistically hoping to run sub 1 hour 37 minutes with the faint hope of breaking 1.35 for the first time since going on Creatine. In the old days (4 years ago) I almost always beat my race goals. Back when running was easy. I have done a few 10 mile runs in
the past month, I was feeling great and, although my times for my habitual 8 mile runs have been slower the past year or so, they seemed on par with a 1.37 performance
The course for the half was a little challenging but awesome (although the race organizers suck)
with hills scattered throughout. However, from the first mile I felt good and loose, and full of energy. I felt like I went out pretty fast until I heard 8 minutes at mile 1. I didn’t get appreciably faster, hitting 5 miles in around 38.30 or so. And that’s when the mile markers disappeared for the next 40 minutes. I don’t think I would have been much faster than the 76.22 I went through at 10 but it would have been nice to have some fear to motivate me (I actually do have an excuse). I did accelerate the last 3 miles but slugged home in 1.38.46.
So I have a lot of work to do in the next 5 months if Boston 2010 is going to happen. Hopefully that will make it all the sweeter.
Footnote: My dad ran 1.58, which is incredibly impressive since he is in the 65-69 year old age group.
No comments:
Post a Comment