Running With Jack

Following my long training run on Saturday my legs are recovering nicely. I had some tired muscles, but no pain or abnormal soreness.

Thomas asked if I was sure that the marathon on Saturday was 42 km? My answer is that no I am not sure, I question this myself. I would like to think that I am in super shape and ran this training marathon faster than the Mannheim Marathon a couple weeks before. With my 50-mile race coming up in three weeks I think I will choose to believe it was close enough to the marathon distance.

Rob had an interesting post this week about justifying his position as a runner. He stated: “My typical line, as of late, is that I am tired of being a slow ultra runner and I want to return to being a faster marathon runner. There always seems to be a saying or justification that I use to somehow make my running make sense. If I am running slow, it must be school, work and other life happenings that make it so, and I make sure to let other people know it. I think we all do this to some extent. We qualify a race as a training run, which in a way protects us if we do poorly.”

At first I thought, yeah that’s me alright! But when I think about it this is not completely accurate. I do run a lot of races as training runs, but my goal from the get go is, well, to run them a slower than normal pace so I don’t beat my body up. Most of my so-called training run marathons are programmed into my training schedule and in most cases I seem to run these faster than some of the marathon’s that I have “raced”.

Call me a lazy marathon runner if you like, but I have never had the ambition to continually run record breaking races. That said, I do try to improve my personal bests each year, with success I might add. With the exception of my first couple marathons I have never trained for a fast marathon. My fastest marathon to date (4:14) was run on a hilly course that most would not consider ideal for setting a personal best. However since the core of my long runs are run on hilly trails in preparation for the 50-mile race that I run in June, this is where I excel.

I’m happy where I am at with my running in the moment. I am still passionate about running and can’t imagine not doing it. I love participating in races and prefer to run many at a slightly slower pace, as opposed to a few at a fast pace. This may change in the future, but for now I’m happy being in my little comfort zone.

Are you where you want to be with your running?