Training for Houston
Yesterday on my run, one of my teammates asked if I was training for something specific. I said I had two marathons in January.
So after 7 years of marathons, I think it’s time to admit: there is a difference between “planning to run” and “training”. For a long time, I saw them as the same, as “training” was really about getting in the miles to ensure I could finish. Heck, sometimes I didn’t even do that (remember the Big Sur marathon, when I hadn’t run over 13 miles in the 3 months preceding the race?)
As my goals shift from completion to quality performances, so too must my attitude. I have two races in January, yes. But I don’t plan to do anything spectacular for Disney: that’s an experiential event. I DO however want to do well in Houston. I’ve blown away so many PRs in the past 12 months, but that’s one distance I haven’t put a serious training effort toward since training for Rock n Roll AZ in January 2009.
Wow.. THREE years? I actually originally wrote January 2010 and had to go back and check the date.
Sure enough, a glance at my race resume shows a bunch of races (I count 10) since then, but I can’t honestly say I followed any sort of serious regimen to try to do well. I was running, but not training.
The final time we all ran Boston was in 2009. I hadn’t particularly trained for it, and Helen and I both ran reasonably well (~3:47). Meanwhile, Meredith ran a BIG PR (it’s still the fastest marathon between the two of us, on any course). She’d recently started working with a coach, and was mentally and physically prepared to kick butt. I was happy for her, but she said something after the race that bothered me(apparently – it’s over 2 years later). She said something along the lines of “maybe if you and Helen ran fewer races, you’d do better”. Now, I love to run and race, so I dismissed it. At the end of that marathon, we were excitedly going over our plans for our next big race together, Pikes Peak!
If I’d trained and peaked for Boston, and left it all on the course, I don’t know I’d have been emotionally ready to discuss the next big thing. But perhaps that’s why there is a difference between training for and planning to run. Pikes Peak (a lot of the races Helen and I have done over the years) is for the joy of running, not to try to achieve a particular goal. I thankfully recover quickly, so I have been able to run multiple marathons back-to-back, so I think as long as I’m smart in Disney, I won’t compromise Houston.
So, a long story to say that I’m running Disney, but I’m training for Houston. Although it’s not a huge shift, that means I am going to orient my thinking and my training a bit more towards that following weekend, and mentally prepare myself to do more than just run. Disney will be something to enjoy, but I don’t want it to detract at all from what I have in mind for January 15, 2012.
After that I have a few more races I’m planning to run, but so far I don’t have anything I’ve set sights on to really train for. I want to see what I can do now in Houston, and then be able to see how much further my training group can take me.
