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On those sessions to remember on race day, on honesty about training
Posted by
vat
,
in
Training
19 April 2012
·
178 views
Anyone who has had the misfortune to hear me warble on about the training aspects of running will be familiar with my thoughts on lining up on marathon race day and being honest with yourself about your preparedness.
You can get away with some things up to about half marathon distance but if you line up for a marathon and try to bluff your way through, you will be found out.
The various marathon report threads are littered with people who have experienced massive blow ups before 30km in their marathons, and whilst bad days happen to the best of us, with conditions, illness, bad headspace, I think if you go back through the various marathon threads and see the number of times the questions are asked about shortcutting training to achieve various goals, it's difficult not to conclude the two are related.
Part of this 'honesty' includes what I refer to as sessions to remember on race day. Today, for me, was a prime example.
I work in the electrical transmission industry. We start early, and, as a result generally finish mid-afternoon. Today, as a result of some messy work someone did a few months ago, we had a late finish which plonked me right into the middle of Brisbane peak hour, and I had to cross from Brisbane's outer northern suburbs to UQ. There had been an accident on the Western Freeway which had caused major delays pretty much through the entire west half of the city.
So tired, frustrated, angry, and hungry, I had a lot of excuses lined up to miss the session. I was, however, determined to get to UQ, run my 3.4k warm up, do my 4 x 1.13k reps (it's about half the length of the gravel track), and do my 3.4k cool down. So, after much delay and hassle, I arrived in darkness, did the session, and actually did a quiet fist pump on my return to the car, so rapt was I that I'd gone and done the session. Ran okay, too, which was a nice bonus.
So, this is a session to remember on race day. I could have just gone home, broken the streak, felt bad, moved on. Instead, I got my session in, ran okay, and have a nice little memory for race day.
I reckon if you line up on race day with the thought "I worked hard for this, I deserve a good result", it's half the battle.
You can get away with some things up to about half marathon distance but if you line up for a marathon and try to bluff your way through, you will be found out.
The various marathon report threads are littered with people who have experienced massive blow ups before 30km in their marathons, and whilst bad days happen to the best of us, with conditions, illness, bad headspace, I think if you go back through the various marathon threads and see the number of times the questions are asked about shortcutting training to achieve various goals, it's difficult not to conclude the two are related.
Part of this 'honesty' includes what I refer to as sessions to remember on race day. Today, for me, was a prime example.
I work in the electrical transmission industry. We start early, and, as a result generally finish mid-afternoon. Today, as a result of some messy work someone did a few months ago, we had a late finish which plonked me right into the middle of Brisbane peak hour, and I had to cross from Brisbane's outer northern suburbs to UQ. There had been an accident on the Western Freeway which had caused major delays pretty much through the entire west half of the city.
So tired, frustrated, angry, and hungry, I had a lot of excuses lined up to miss the session. I was, however, determined to get to UQ, run my 3.4k warm up, do my 4 x 1.13k reps (it's about half the length of the gravel track), and do my 3.4k cool down. So, after much delay and hassle, I arrived in darkness, did the session, and actually did a quiet fist pump on my return to the car, so rapt was I that I'd gone and done the session. Ran okay, too, which was a nice bonus.
So, this is a session to remember on race day. I could have just gone home, broken the streak, felt bad, moved on. Instead, I got my session in, ran okay, and have a nice little memory for race day.
I reckon if you line up on race day with the thought "I worked hard for this, I deserve a good result", it's half the battle.
