FRUSTRATING

Anyone else hate going to back to work after running a marathon? I’m not talking about the work-part or the walking-around-on-sore-legs-part. I’m talking about the having-to-make-small-talk-about-the-race-over-and-over-with-people-who-aren’t-runners-part.

It didn’t help that a co-worker brought in cookies and then sent an email to about 30 people telling them to stop by and congratulate me.

Co-worker #1: How’d it go?
Me: Blah, blah, blah, the last 2 miles were tough.
Co-worker #1: The first 2 miles would be tough for me. Ha. Ha.

Co-worker #2: How’d it go?
Me: Blah, blah, blah, 2:59.
Co-worker #2: 3 hours is a good standard right? It’d take me 10 hours. Ha. Ha.

Co-worker #3: What’d you do?
Me: What do you mean?
Co-worker #3: What was your time?
Me: 2:59
Co-worker #3: For how long?
Me: A marathon.
Co-worker #3: How long is that?
Me: They’re all the same. 26.2 miles.
Co-worker #3: Well I don’t know. Ha. Ha.

Co-worker #4 was probably the worst. She asked how I found the time to train. But what she really wanted to do was give me the run-down of each of her 3 kids and their sleeping patterns and why she could never find time to do it.

Another co-worker is really sweet, but I swear she was more pumped up about the race, both last week and this week, than I was. She was rattling off my time, place and the number of people who ran.

They’re nice gestures, but I’d rather not have the attention.

Here’s what I really find frustrating. I keep referring back to the 20K I ran in April because it was my best race or two of the year. I ran 1:17:57 and the first place woman ran 1:17:26. That same gal ran 2:49:30 at Chicago. There’s no way I should lose nearly 10 minutes to her in a race that’s 22K longer. Even if I was injured for part of the year, that’s ridiculous.

I gave “qp” a hard time in a comment for already asking about what’s next, but that’s how we operate. We finish one race and start looking ahead to the next. I don’t know what I’ll do exactly, but as I mentioned yesterday, I need to run this distance more frequently. Therefore, I’ll probably focus on something like Grandma’s again.

My friend Scott emailed me earlier in the week and he’s really excited to train together this winter for a spring marathon. While we’ve trained together before, it always seems like we’re focusing on different races. It’d be cool to follow the same plan for the same race.

Right now I plan on taking at least a week off, maybe more. While Scott’s email has me fired up to train, I also remember how beat up I’ve been most of the year. Winter is long around here and I don’t want to go through it feeling sore on every run.

When I do get back into it, I’d really like to try and train like last winter and get up towards 100 mpw again. I think it’d be really interesting to average 80-100 mpw for about 4 months and then run a marathon. Even without any specific hard workouts, I think the strength gained through that kind of mileage would be enough to run sub-2:55.

Finally, I mentioned that I met Dick Beardsley at the expo. He was at the New Balance exhibit and although it was packed with runners, they were more concerned with purchasing high-tech gear than talking to one of the all-time legends in the sport – especially if you’re a Minnesotan. I told him how much his Grandma’s course record inspired me when I was 12. Afterwards, I remembered I had just purchased the Marathon & Beyond commemorative edition of Grandma’s Marathon, so I went back for this autograph.



Quote of the day;

“Marathoning is like cutting yourself unexpectedly. You dip into the pain so gradually that the damage is done before you are aware of it. Unfortunately, when awareness comes, it is excruciating.” – John Farrington, Australian marathoner