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For The Win
Jun. 13th, 2024 09:17 amThis post is all just me agonizing over running, so feel free to skip over if you're not interested. I've been talking to myself about this for a while, so this post is kind of ... trying to get my thoughts lined up. Ducks in a row. Though it feels more like herding cats.
I didn't really start running until 2017 in a serious way. I wasn't on a team in school and was never super-sporty though I loved being outside and being active. So while I missed a lot of training and experience when I was younger, I also don't have a lot of the baggage.
I like setting goals and training towards them, and I've had some success in doing so - setting PRs and PBs, even stuff like winning in my age group. But I don't think I'll ever be seriously fast, like Boston fast. I don't mind going long, though, which may be what's drawn me into ultra running. Ultras aside, though, I have some regular distance races coming up and I want to figure out how to approach them.
Should I set time goals or not. I am wondering mainly if I should train more to my current state of fitness and just see how much I improve over the summer, rather than saying I want to run this distance in this time. Setting some new personal records is appealing, but it feels like racing with one eye constantly on my Garmin lest I fall behind pace is taking a lot of the fun out of it. I wouldn't be running and racing if it wasn't fun, and I'm having to battle the perfectionist tendencies I was raised with, such as how if you aren't constantly improving, you're failing. If you aren't immediately good at something, you're always going to be bad at it. Running has helped me put a lot of that away, but there's still a nagging tendency to beat myself up if I fall short of some goal that was unrealistic in the first place and think, you'd have made it if you tried, but you don't try, you're lazy. (Yeah, I can even hear that in my mom's voice, yeesh ...) And I think in the course of writing all this out I've found my answer.
My tenth and eleventh marathons are coming up this fall, and I don't want to mar something like a tenth marathon with a lot of agony over missing a PR or something. Setting one would be great but the marathon distance is a very different beast from other races. I want to enjoy myself again. I think I know what I need to do. Next week I'll go up to Twin Lakes where I can run a magic mile and set my training paces from that.
And maybe cross the finish line with a smile instead of collapsing into the arms of a medic :D
Speaking of training, I'm doing an easy pace run on the treadmill today. I don't feel like dealing with the 99% humidity out there on a base run - I don't have gills. But I like to joke that humid days are the Southerner's version of altitude training. I don't want to lose my heat acclimation, but I don't really think I'll get too spoiled doing a workout or two indoors each week. Could be worse. I don't have to deal with ice and snow.
I didn't really start running until 2017 in a serious way. I wasn't on a team in school and was never super-sporty though I loved being outside and being active. So while I missed a lot of training and experience when I was younger, I also don't have a lot of the baggage.
I like setting goals and training towards them, and I've had some success in doing so - setting PRs and PBs, even stuff like winning in my age group. But I don't think I'll ever be seriously fast, like Boston fast. I don't mind going long, though, which may be what's drawn me into ultra running. Ultras aside, though, I have some regular distance races coming up and I want to figure out how to approach them.
Should I set time goals or not. I am wondering mainly if I should train more to my current state of fitness and just see how much I improve over the summer, rather than saying I want to run this distance in this time. Setting some new personal records is appealing, but it feels like racing with one eye constantly on my Garmin lest I fall behind pace is taking a lot of the fun out of it. I wouldn't be running and racing if it wasn't fun, and I'm having to battle the perfectionist tendencies I was raised with, such as how if you aren't constantly improving, you're failing. If you aren't immediately good at something, you're always going to be bad at it. Running has helped me put a lot of that away, but there's still a nagging tendency to beat myself up if I fall short of some goal that was unrealistic in the first place and think, you'd have made it if you tried, but you don't try, you're lazy. (Yeah, I can even hear that in my mom's voice, yeesh ...) And I think in the course of writing all this out I've found my answer.
My tenth and eleventh marathons are coming up this fall, and I don't want to mar something like a tenth marathon with a lot of agony over missing a PR or something. Setting one would be great but the marathon distance is a very different beast from other races. I want to enjoy myself again. I think I know what I need to do. Next week I'll go up to Twin Lakes where I can run a magic mile and set my training paces from that.
And maybe cross the finish line with a smile instead of collapsing into the arms of a medic :D
Speaking of training, I'm doing an easy pace run on the treadmill today. I don't feel like dealing with the 99% humidity out there on a base run - I don't have gills. But I like to joke that humid days are the Southerner's version of altitude training. I don't want to lose my heat acclimation, but I don't really think I'll get too spoiled doing a workout or two indoors each week. Could be worse. I don't have to deal with ice and snow.
