I was entered in the 2012 New York Marathon that was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy. This was kind of an act of god because I was not ready to run 26.2 miles. My longest run leading up to the race was 10 miles as I had not been super motivated to go long on weekends. And as Mike will painfully find out, you can't do well in a marathon without going long (16+ miles) several times leading up to the race.
Part of my relative ambivalence with racing is due to my obsession with working out everyday. I pretty much never miss a day even though I know it would probably be good to rest every now and then. When I do miss a day every few years due to illness, I feel like my fitness has gone out the window. In running, conventional wisdom is that every day you don't run, you lose two days of fitness. Of course I typically run every other day which means I am always treading water in my fitness.While CrossFit promotes a day off every three days, I'm actually not sure what most people do - Rich Froning, who I quote like god, doesn't seem to take a day off and he does about seven WODs a day.
When you race, or train to do well in a race, as opposed for general fitness, you are venturing out onto the thin razor blade between fitness and injury - to become super fit you need to come close to injuring yourself or becoming ill due to over training, and I tend to get calf or hamstring injuries when I venture out on the edge. And given my addiction to working out everyday, I'd rather run a slow 6 than hammer it and become injured even if it sacrifices a fast time.
Of course it is all relative - we are talking the difference between a 6.50/mile and 7.30 mile pace. I am running 7 miles at 8:30 am and am still not sure which one I will pick.
Tuesday and Thursday run
6.5 miles in around the same exact time --- 49 minutes and 40 seconds
No comments:
Post a Comment