Aesop said that slow and steady wins the race, but I beg to differ. The constant, plodding pace I had in my first half-marathon last year yielded me an 832nd place finish. As I'm sure you know, 832nd place is not exactly what you call a "win", and while I'm proud of myself for finishing at all, my time of 2:40:20 isn't really something to cheer about. This year, I'm training for a full marathon and if I can sustain my current training pace, I'll be lucky to finish in under five and a half hours. Judging by the published marathon results of a few local races, I'm setting myself up to come in dead last in my age group if not overall.
Look, I usually view my slowness with good humor, but the very real prospect of coming in dead last in one of these races kind of scares the crap out of me. I'm vain and competitive enough to view a last place finish as a personal humiliation (even though I don't think poorly of other last-place finishers because it's a marathon FFS and just getting to the end is pretty awesome). I figure, therefore, that it's good for me to aim to not just improve my endurance, but also my speed, at least by a little bit.
The problem is that my zeal has already laid me up with an injury. My 30-minute run on Friday was one of my best, with an average speed of 10:32/mile. Unfortunately, I had a bit of trouble hopping up a curb and managed to pull the muscles on the outside of my lower leg (the peroneus muscles) during that lightning fast, gazelle-like sprint through the sleepy morning streets and will probably be out of commission for the rest of the week. This sucks because the weather happens to be unbelievably beautiful and not too hot at the moment, i.e. perfect for trying to run fast.
To make up for not being able to run, I'm going to try and do a bit of swimming or other cross-training (did I mention that I'm a horrible swimmer, too?). Plus I should probably do a bit of strength training to help me with my posture and stamina. This blog is going to serve as my training log. I hope to visit it often. Maybe other people will join me for the (slow, sweaty) ride.
Look, I usually view my slowness with good humor, but the very real prospect of coming in dead last in one of these races kind of scares the crap out of me. I'm vain and competitive enough to view a last place finish as a personal humiliation (even though I don't think poorly of other last-place finishers because it's a marathon FFS and just getting to the end is pretty awesome). I figure, therefore, that it's good for me to aim to not just improve my endurance, but also my speed, at least by a little bit.
The problem is that my zeal has already laid me up with an injury. My 30-minute run on Friday was one of my best, with an average speed of 10:32/mile. Unfortunately, I had a bit of trouble hopping up a curb and managed to pull the muscles on the outside of my lower leg (the peroneus muscles) during that lightning fast, gazelle-like sprint through the sleepy morning streets and will probably be out of commission for the rest of the week. This sucks because the weather happens to be unbelievably beautiful and not too hot at the moment, i.e. perfect for trying to run fast.
To make up for not being able to run, I'm going to try and do a bit of swimming or other cross-training (did I mention that I'm a horrible swimmer, too?). Plus I should probably do a bit of strength training to help me with my posture and stamina. This blog is going to serve as my training log. I hope to visit it often. Maybe other people will join me for the (slow, sweaty) ride.
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