2 years ago, I ran my first marathon. The Austin marathon. And we all know what happened... i ended up in the medical tent. I once read that 0.25% of people run a marathon in their life. That's one quarter of one percent! It was the hardest thing I will probably ever do in my life, and I learned more about myself that morning than I ever want to again.
To know how far you can take your body (after the brain has repeatedly told you to stop) before everything shuts down, is something I don't recommend you test. However, in a slightly distubing kind of way, it is invaluable knowledge to have.
To say that running that marathon changed my life would be an understatement.
1 year ago, I ran the Austin Marathon for fun. It was my 4th marathon start, and had such a great time, it changed my life again. My goal was to run a marathon the entire way without stopping, without walking, without frowning, without caring about finish time. I learned everything about positive thinking, and came up with "happy running". It changed my approach to running, but it also helped me greatly in life over the last year.
This week I will run my 3rd Austin Marathon, and I yet again have a different goal. This time, provided my legs start feeling better over the next few days, I will use the Austin Marathon as a hard workout. I will yet again feel pain, but it's a planned pain, to test out a few different things, and see if I can come close to bonking but still run hard.
Similar to Year 1, but:
- There won't be any cramping - I haven't ever cramped again since that first marathon.
- There won't be any collapsing - It's a controlled workout, where I will bring myself to a near bonk, because that is the goal. The bar is set so ridiculously high, that I know I probably can't achieve it, but that the whole point.
In a weird way, I kind of look forward to trying to bring myself to near-bonking level this Sunday, because I know I'm not taking myself to the edge like I did 2 years ago.
To try and explain why I would run a marathon as a hard workout to non-runners and for them to understand is almost impossible. I don't expect anyone other than my teammates and a handful of others to understand. But then again, I don't blame them, because, seriously, who the hell runs an entire marathon as a workout?
0.25% of 0.25%???? That's what, 0.00625%?
I know, i know, I've completely lost my mind is what they'll say.
But that's OK, though, because my non-running friends have been confused for quite some time now, so I might as well just continue raising the level of "crazy".
7 comments:
Once the snow melts (April), the Incline club runs a weekly marathon up and down a mountain as a workout. Many of us do this the day after CRUD has gone some crazy ultra distance.
You don't race nearly as hard as you could. With how hard you train, all your PR's, except maybe your 10K, should be lower. Especially the marathon.
You're right, but I haven't touched any other distance in a long time. I think I can get low 18 on a 5k, and under 1:25 in a 1/2. I just havent felt like racing those.
As for the marathon, patience young gwasshoppah. Patience. 3:08 was just a step I needed to take. My goals are much more aggressive over then next 14 months. 4 marathons over 14 months, 3 of which are races.
Also throwing in Sunmart 50 or 50, and Bandera 100 will be my "shock the world" party. Shhhhh.... Don't tell them I'm coming.
Finally, let's not forget that I'm only 3 years in to this running thing. Soccer was my thing. Definitely not making it an excuse, just giving myself till year 4 to get a good fire going.
Experience counts for a lot, but there's a fine line between experience and getting old!
And if you plan on running trails/ultras a lot more, you may wanna break three hours while you still can...
I think you're amazing. I'm pretty sure there will be many others out there that are doing the marathon as a training run :) Misery loves company...
You'll do great!
If anyone can follow his race plan these days, it's definitely you! I hope you have a kick ass "training run" on Sunday!
Good lord, when did Rogue become team in training? "You're a winner for finishing, Wiley. Oh, you dropped out after three miles? That's OK, you're a winner for trying!"
BARF!
Wonder what Steve Prefontaine would say about your race plans...
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