IT’S A START

Now I know what it’s like to be an elite marathoner. Yesterday’s 24-mile commute home took about 2 hours. We didn’t get much snow, probably 2-3 inches, but it was all during the afternoon, leading up to rush hour. Oh well, it was still better than my 2:30 commute I had once last year.

The commute actually screwed up my schedule for today more than yesterday’s. Since I got home late and had an evening run planned, I didn’t want to eat beforehand. As a result, I stayed up until 10 watching ER and eating, which caused me to sleep in this morning. Maybe I can get in a run over lunchtime and another one tonight while watching the Opening Ceremony for the Winter Olympics.

I had a nice run on the treadmill last night while watching My Name is Earl and The Office. After a 2 mile warmup, I ran 5 miles at 7:00 pace and then cooled down for a mile. Now that I’m fairly comfortable with my mileage, I want to add in some stronger aerobic runs. Granted, 7:00 pace isn’t even marathon pace, but I want to ease into some of these. The ones I’ve done so far have all been while running outside with someone else. Going solo on a treadmill is a lot different, but it’s a start.

I thought I’d include a list of questions that I like to answer after running a race. They came from one of my all-time favorite books; The Competitive Edge: Mental Toughness Training for Distance Runners by Richard Elliot. It was a Track and Field News publication that’s now out of print. Good luck finding it. Edited to say I found 6 copies here. For $1.79 it's a steal.

Name of race:
Date and Time:
Location:
Distance:
Competition:
Weeks (months) since last race:
Weather and course conditions:
Goals: Time - Non-time -
Race strategy and possible mishaps and contingencies:
Mental preparation strategy:
Duration of warm-up and cool-down:
Arousal level (1 low, 10 high) on the starting line:
Finish time:
Overall pace:
Place:
Splits:
Things I did well in the race:
Things I need to work on:
Performance rating (1-10). How close did I come to what I was capable of running that day?
Mentally playback the best parts of the race. Check here______
Other comments about the race:

It’s easy to fill this out after a good race. However, it’s probably more important to fill it out after a poor race. I think the 'things done well' and the 'things to work on' are two of the most important questions. I usually include the times of my main competitors in the comment section.