Back in the Saddle

Today, I was supposed to run 12 miles… However, I only ran 7.5 miles.

And I don’t care. You wanna know why?

Susan Stout’s (I Run For My Life) Facebook comment on my status: Lightning McTerry

I.AM.SPEED

Okay, I am not as fast as most of the people out there. Typically around 33% of all runners finish ahead of me in a 5k and as the race gets longer so does my Regression to the Mean (I move closer to 50%). Seeing that just 6 days ago, I had been struggling with making it to Mile 21 so that I could quit. Today, I let the engine throttle.

I was talking with THE Stewart Ellington, the 2-time (consecutive) winner at the Covenant Health Knoxville Marathon (2008 & 2009) about how sore he was. He said that he wasn’t all that sore and that he ran a local 5k today. I haven’t looked to see where in the Top 5 he finished, I would imagine 2nd, only because there are other runners out there training for speed and not distance. He said that the wind held him back and so he held back on going faster (he finished in 2:29). Speed. It’s ALL relative.

This morning, I took the throttle off and just WENT. The first 0.75 miles felt sluggish and that was around a 9 min pace. I could then feel myself warm up and throttle up. I hit 8:36, 8:18 and 8:07. I realized that after the 2nd sub 9min mile, that I would NOT be able to keep that kind of pace up for that long. So, I decided to stop at the Greenway Interchange and turn back for another 3.75 miles. I took about 2 minutes or so to recollect my thoughts and headed back to the Van.

7:55, 8:31 and 8:41 for the return 3 miles. The last 0.75 miles was more of a cool down. I knew that I didn’t want to kill myself on this run, nor did I want to reinjure anything that may have just healed from last Sunday’s run. So the last 0.75 miles was in 7:37 including my Fave: Fast Finish, Race Rehearsal… not only do you speed up to the finish, but you practice exactly as if it is the race finish and you are closing in on another runner to beat them to the finish line. Practice Makes Perfect..

So it’s 29 Days until the Flying Pig Marathon… and I am actually feeling excited about the race this early. Since this is somewhere around my 14th marathon. I usually don’t get really engaged in the event until the week before. This is usually when I write up the Guess My Time post about the race. And of course, I still get very excited on Race Morning. I think that I know that marathons are no fun for me, is when Race Morning is a chore. Sure, there are times during training when I think, “Why am I doing this? Do I really want to this?” But even marathons being used as training runs (Myrtle Beach 2005 and Knoxville 2009), I still get really excited. I love having conversations with people who are going to be running their first marathon, even the race day excitement of 5k and 10ks really can’t compare to the Shock & Awe feeling of getting out there and standing in line for a marathon.

29 Days and counting. It would probably be prudent of me to reevaluate my training program and see what needs to be changed. I can’t fathom that what I have scribbled on the calendar would really be effective.

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