My best marathon time is 5 hours and 4 minutes. I did that in Newport this past June. I would really like to improve on my time. I found a training plan that I really like, one that I really think will help me improve my time. There are some time projections that I need to do in order to drill down the training. I did those projections a few months ago. Then, I ran a 10K on Jan 2nd and had my best time ever. I went back and recalculated my times. This training plan seems to have much more confidence in my abilities that I do.
I hemmed and hawed, went back and forth and finally decided I was going to put my trust into this training plan. I was going to follow it and see where that got me. Today, my first training day, was speed training. I was set to do some mile repeats. This means I do a couple warm up miles, then I run three miles at a certain pace, with a minute in between to recover. When I looked at the times I was supposed to run those three miles, I got really nervous. It was a lot faster than I have ever run (hence the title "speed training"). I honestly wasn't even sure I could do it.
I left the house this morning with my trusty new Garmin 310XT - this thing is awesome...it is my training guide. I set up my entire workout and just followed along, checking my pace every little bit to be sure I was on track.
The time came to do my first fast mile and off I went. The funny thing is that I was going too fast...way too fast...like sprinting. In my mind, I was envisioning that as the pace I needed to run. I spent the rest of the mile slowing down to get to the correct pace. The weird thing is that I felt scared of it. I realized that and thought how silly it was to be afraid of it. Instead, I wanted to have fun with it. So I changed my mindset, settled in, relaxed into it and just ran.
I did all three miles at exactly the pace I needed to go. I was really proud of myself and actually started to believe I could do this marathon in the time the training plan projects. I went online and registered. It asked what my projected finish time was, I put it down. It asked what my best marathon time so far was, I put that down too. Looking at them, my new goal seems almost ridiculous. I laughed and hit "submit". What the hell.
Then it asked what size shirt I wanted. This, to me, is even more difficult than the training, the time projection and the actual marathon! I want the shirt to fit and I never know how it will fit. Will a medium be right, will it be too big or too small..which is worse...back and forth, back and forth. I swear, I have issues!! I finally settled on a medium and hoped for the best.
I'm keeping my time projection to myself. I'm not ready to share. I can just say that when I meet that goal, its going to be pretty amazing...especially to myself.
A fellow blogger posted this quote today...seemed like it was meant for me:
"You have to set goals that are almost out of reach. If you set a goal that is attainable without much work or thought, you are stuck with something below your true talent and potential"
No comments:
Post a Comment