Today marks 3 weeks until my first marathon distance race. I am entered in the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival Marathon. A coworker encouraged me to enter this event just after I had run my first half marathon and she had run half the North Face 100 as part of a teams event. So there were endorphin highs all-round, I felt I could conquer anything. There was nothing logical about entering back then.
Fast forward to today, with only a couple of runs over 20 km, feeling absolutely terrible on others and getting in nowhere near as many km's as I would like suddenly everything is not looking so rosy.
Actually it is, all rosy red and painful. This is not usually a problem, as an endurance athlete* you would understand that pain is addictive and I am addicted to it. It is the mental aspect that is hard to deal with, not just getting through the race but dealing with the disappointments along the way.
* Endurance athlete only loosely applies to me.
Everyone has some sort of goal, in a race this usually manifests itself as a time. A magical number that will justify all the work that you have put into this preparation. Not meeting this goal is disappointing to say the least, suddenly you have to question everything. Did I prepare well enough? Was I hydrated? Did I have enough energy? Did I pace correctly? Did I follow my plan? Sure these are important but you really have to ask, was this goal achievable?
This is my problem, currently I have no idea if I can even run 42 km. Will I make the distance, or will I collapse in a quivering heap, for me there is no middle ground I will finish the race. That is just me, I have to finish what I start. Hiking the Coast Track one time I spent most of a night in hospital before going back and finishing the next day, but that is a story for another day.
I had already established that however nice, a sub 3 hour marathon although not beyond the realms of possibility is beyond the realms of probability especially in 3 weeks time. The cause of my SOPRA is now starting to doubt that I will be able to run a 3:30 marathon. Looking on the bright side this a bit of a kick up the backside to get me working harder.
So sub 3:30 marathon in 3 weeks...Bring it on!
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