FEVER IS BREAKING

I think my fever has broken. We received 3” of new snow last night and I didn’t even think about going skiing. Instead, I went for an 8 mile run. Two miles into the run I decided to take advantage of the new snow by throwing in a hill workout. The new snow was really wet and sticky, so it made going up the hills easy – albeit slow. The snow also provided a nice amount of cushion on my way down.

It’s probably not surprising that Sunday’s performance has me wondering what Boston will bring. I couldn’t help but plug my 30:02 into the McMillan calculator. It spit out 2:57:38, which is only 9 seconds from my PR. Of course, I’m keeping in mind that the Human Race is a fast course. However, I also have to remind myself that my PR was run in less than ideal conditions. So maybe ideal conditions can offset being a little less fit and lead to a PR. Anyway, my main concerns are honing in on marathon pace and getting up the hills on the course, hence the hill workout today.

A touched on this yesterday, but the one thing that struck me today during my run was that feeling of running a decent race. As I get older, there’s a concern of slowing down and never running another PR. However, this morning I realized that there’s always “that feeling” that I can try to achieve. It doesn’t matter if I’m running 29-minutes or 31-minutes (or any other time); as long as I achieve that sense I had on Sunday, I’ll be happy. I know that’s vague, but how do you describe it? How do you tell another runner, “This is what it should feel like when you’re running a great race.” You can’t do it – you just sort of know after awhile.

So as my race times creep up, along with my age, I’ll take some solace in the fact that no matter if I’m running 30-minutes, 40-minutes, 50-minutes, etc. for 8K, I’ll still be able to feel the same sensations as when I was in college. They’ll just last a little longer for the same distance.

Maybe I’m just burnt out on big-time athletes and all the money they make, their run-ins with the law, etc., or maybe it’s just having more access to runners being interviewed through sites like flotrack. In any case, it’s refreshing to hear what runners have to say, including today’s quote of the day;

“If I’m racing for money I’m going to get 39th and like walk it in – so I have to find other reasons [to motivate myself to race].” – Andrew Carlson, when asked about the money he’s won in the last two weekends after finishing 1st and 2nd in national championship events