Moving Foward

I have read some of my fellow runners' blogs about their fall marathons and many, like me, had some tough races. Some dropped out, others finished, and others ran very well. Many, like me, ran well up until 20 miles. The distance of the marathon does not lie. You can train yourself to run it, but to race it at a high level is a completely different thing.

I had a great convo last week with my first high school cross country coach, Jerry Link. Mr. Link was a great motivator, and I learned a lot about pushing one's mind to the very possible limit from him. When I asked him about the Chicago Marathon, he said:

"Chris, I think if you had run Marine Corps again or another hometown race you would have been ok, or even to run Chicago just to "run it", but to jump in a race like Chicago and expect a personal best right now just didn't sound right to me-you are so young and in a race like that you are not just running with good runners-you are running with pros-I just immediately thought it was a bad idea. I think you should build your confidence up in the shorter distances like you have been, focus on those races-get to a point where you reach a certain level, and then come back confident and ready to tackle the marathon again."

Perhaps I am still too young to expect to master the marathon(meaning not just run-but race it). The training has improved. The mileage has improved. I was ALMOST there in Chicago, I feel like. It just couldn't hold together in the final stages. And, with that comes maturity. I am young, and have my youth to maximize my speed now. My 5K PR needs much improvement. My 10K has improved dramatically over the past few years, still though, it is only 32:54. Now, if I can get to sub-32-that would be nice. Now, on to present training. It is going well, the workouts have been sharpening my legs up. Back to more regular mileage, but faster pace. Last 2 weeks were 66 miles, 51 miles, respectively. The cruise interval workout I did last week on the canal was good. Today I did a general aerobic run w/ 8x100m reps. I'm looking foward to hitting the track and doing some VO2 Max stuff this weekend-repeat miles sound very good to me-maybe 3xmile and 3x800.