Once upon a time I was a member of my high school cross country team. On the last race I ran with the team (end of the season) I learned a very valuable lesson about running. We had gone over the course in advance of the race so during the race I knew where I was relative to the end of the race – I knew how much further I had to go and how much energy to put in so that I would not run out before the finish line. As I came to the last long incline before the end of the race I knew that I could push myself and I decided to attack the hill. I was a short distance behind another runner, perhaps 15 yards, and I knew that I was in tenth place overall. As I attacked that hill I quickly closed the gap and overtook him shortly before the course turned and went down a steep incline to the final flat to the finish line. As I passed him, he sped up, not wanting to lose a place. I was still ahead when I got to the edge of the hill and I stretched my stride and let gravity carry me down faster than I could have sprinted and certainly faster than I could have gone if I had tried to remain in control of my pace. I got going so fast down that hill that my momentum on the flat carried me to very quickly catch up with two more runners who had not even been in sight when I started attacking a the bottom of that last hill.
Tag: marathon
I don’t recall what triggered the thought, but over the Thanksgiving break I had a little insight into the vital difference between a challenge and a competition. A competition is something like a sporting event where there can only be one winner (excluding ties). It is an event where the winner is determined as a function of relative position. A challenge is an event where there can be multiple winners because winning is determined as a function of achievement based on static criteria.
A marathon provides a good example of both. Winning a marathon is a competition. The winning time of any one race has no bearing on the outcome of other races. Your time in one race may be too slow to win while the same time in another race would constitute first place. Finishing a marathon is a challenge – any marathon runner will congratulate any other on the accomplishment of running that 26.2 mile race. Finishing a marathon in under 3 hours is a challenge – no matter how many people accomplish the feat, my finishing in under three hours does not diminish your success in finishing in under three hours.
The distinction here might seem trivial, but I believe that we can find valuable benefits from being able to distinguish between a competition and a challenge. For some non-athletic examples: getting elected to a political office is a competition (assuming you are not unapposed) while getting into heaven is a challenge.
We were discussing Concern for the One today in class and as we talked about how some people get lost because they grow weary one of the class members, Travis Staten, talked about a marathon that he ran recently. He talked of how weary people get running a marathon and about how everybody encourages their fellow runners. I thought of my own marathon experience and I can attest to that spirit of cooperation. Not only the encouragement from other runners, but the verbal encouragement from those spectators who are watching and cheering for all the runners passing them on the course. I suspect that the selfless instinct to bolster the spirits of all those who are racing “against you” comes from the fact that the course is so long that you are competing against yourself or against the course more than against your fellow competitors. Finishing is an accomplishment.
Travis summed it up perfectly by describing the feeling among runners as:
I’m going to make it – and so are you.
When he said that I realized that our approach to life should be exactly the same.
Today was my marathon. I had hoped to finish in under 4 hours. The race began inauspiciously, with the buses arriving more than 30 minutes late to take us to the top. It continued promisingly as I ran well ahead of my pace for the first half of the race (on pace to finish in about 3:40). It ended with me learning a lesson. I had not done enough hill training and the first 17 miles of the race were all downhill (except for more than a mile of uphill). That accounted for my time being so good for the first half, but it also caused my calves and feet to fatigue early because I was using the muscles differently from when I trained. The result was that I started walking after 17 miles because I could hardly lift my feet, a problem I never had when I ran 22 miles on flat ground. I finished the race at a run after adding more than an hour to my time. I crossed the finish line at 4:57:23.
I know that some of my supporters were worried that I might be disappointed by that time but I recognize the deficiency of my training. While I feel I could have pushed myself to do a little better than I did, I could never break 4 hours on this course without some significant hill training before the race. I am not disappointed in the results – I achieved a long-held goal to run a marathon and, as proven by some of the most seasoned runners I met on the course, that is nothing to feel bad about no matter what time the clock says when you finish.
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Reactions to 22 Miles
I got a nice variety of reactions to the fact that I ran 22 miles today. It was the peak of my training for the marathon in July. I’m looking forward to the next seven weeks of fewer miles and more healing for my body. So here are a few of the reactions I got to running this distance:
One jogger who noticed that I was doing more than one lap (3 mile laps) – “Wow, two laps today? You’re good.”
A man whom I often see walking his dog along my jogging route overheard me respond to the above statement by saying that I was doing more than two laps – he asked how many I was doing and laughed when I told him I was doing 7 laps today.
Laura – “How was your run?”
Jared and Kim – “How long did it take you?”
My head – “Well, that bodes well for the actual race.”
My lungs – “That was refreshing, why stop now?”
My knees – “Stop this abuse. You have no business inhabiting a physical body.”
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Prioritizing My Time
I am starting to discover how much effect my marathon training is having on my time. I had been feeling good that I was able to do my training in the early mornings so that it did not interfere with everything else I have to do. Now I realize that the fatigue from long runs on Saturdays has been causing me to put off things like planting my garden.
Looking forward I see that there will be challenges as I try to complete my race preparations while fulfilling duties at work such as helping with the conference that my company sponsors in the last two weeks before my race.
Today I cut my run short slightly so that I would have more energy to devote to getting my garden established before it’s too late in the season. I have spent the day working hard and thinking about this portion of the challenge of a marathon. I knew when I started that it would be demanding, but I am now beginning to appreciate how demanding it is on my time and energy.
I have been looking toward this morning ever since I started training. This was the magic distance where I might hit “the wall” and really know what I was facing with my goal to run a marathon. I woke up at 5:30 full of adrenaline because I was in the middle of a dream about World War II. I got up and dressed and then drank 12 ounces of water before starting off.
I ran at a very consistent pace (25 1/2 to 26 minutes for each 3.1 mile loop) and finished the 20.6 miles in under 3 hours. If the first 20.6 miles of the marathon go like that I can run the last 5.6 miles at 10 minutes a mile and still finish in under 4 hours. Very encouraging.
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My 5K Today
I ran in a charity 5K today – An April Run for Olivia – and found that it was very good practice for my marathon. There were 1200 people running so I got to deal with a crowded start – unlike my runs in High School. Obviously the distance was not a practice (I ran 15 miles before the race because my training called for 18 miles today), but the bib and the getting there on time were good practice. The one thing I forgot to do was look at the clock at the finish line. I honestly don’t know my time. I was hoping to finish in under 29 minutes, and I think I did based on the results of other runners I knew, but unless the results get posted online I will never know for sure.
It was fun to let the kids see me race without having to wait around for four hours while I run the marathon. The 30 minute time-frame allowed them to have fun with it and to see Daddy race. So while Savannah thought I was running for the competition (“You’ll probably win Dad”) I got to run for the distance, the time (or not), and the basic joy of getting out to run.
UPDATE 5/6/07: The race results got posted this afternoon. I finished in 26:19 – well under my goal of 29:00.
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Exerting Ourselves
I ran 14 miles this morning. I got past 13.1 (half a marathon) in less than half of my desired marathon time. Three things came out of this run. First, my watch rubbed the skin off a small area of my wrist. Second, my body ached within minutes after I finished running – normally I feel fine until the next day after a long run. Third, I began to think about what it means to physically push ourselves to our limits.
I don’t really think I pushed myself to the limit today, but I certainly came closer than I have for a long time if ever. As I considered this though, two ideas struck me: our limits are personal and subject to change over time and our ancestors pushed themselves much more than we usually do. That second idea seemed more profound to me than the first, perhaps because I think we should be a little more like them. I’m not sure that the security of basic necessities that we generally face in this country makes us better or stronger.
Our ancestors worked so hard because they knew that if they slackened their efforts they ran the very real risk of coming up short on their basic needs. If you plant too late in spring you might not have enough crops to last you through winter. If you stayed in your warm house all winter you would have no ice to use in the summer. Not only did they have to work hard, but they had to work smart and plan ahead.
I will not argue that their life was better than ours overall, but I am confident that there are things we could learn and apply in our lives that they just lived even if they did not consciously know those principles that we have now largely lost.
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The Value of Objective Mesurements
When I woke up this morning the last thing I wanted to do was go running – which is why I went. Multiple times during my run I noticed that my brain told me to just give up. Fortunately my body kept going each time that signal came. I was honestly surprised a couple of times to discover that I was still running as I felt that impulse to stop. On my return portion of the first 3 mile loop I was thinking about how slow I was going – I felt that I had been running 3 miles through a knee-deep swamp. I was deciding if I would be running for time – which would mean cutting a couple of miles off the run – or for distance – which would add 20 minutes or more to my run.
When I looked at my watch at the end of the three miles I almost fainted because my watch showed that I had done 3 miles within 1 minute of my normal 3-mile pace. That really changed my perspective for the rest of my run. I still felt very sluggish but I knew that my actual performance was typical so I was not as tempted to give up.
I suspect that the same truth applies to other parts of life. There is value in our subjective measurements of performance. When I feel bad about how well I am doing at something I should look for ways to improve my performance or my attitude. On the other hand, sometimes I need to let the subjective measure take a back seat to the objective measure of performance.
If I really am not doing well it is not very useful to keep saying “at least I’m satisfied with how well I’m doing.” I need to look into ways that I can improve so that I am doing well, not just feeling good about what I am doing. If I am doing well I should take that as a sign to not rely so heavily on the subjective feelings of inadequacy or frustration that might yet begin to mar my actual performance.