Saturday, January 26, 2008

Securian Frozen Winter Carnivel Half Marathon

I did it. Finished my 9th Half Marathon. I keep improving which is a great thing. However, as I become a better runner the improvement are smaller and smaller. I feel very improvement has to comes with tougher training. I used to improve with minimal training by 10 minutes but my last 3 half marathons were by 2 minutes. To shave off those 2 minutes each time is a killer. At this rate my goal of a sub 2 hour half marathon is a ways off in the future.

Summary:
Time: 2:06:34, ave pace 9:40. PR by almost 2 minutes.
Field size: 1007 out of 1208.
Spilts: 8:35, 9:03, 9:13, 9:18, 9:44 (hill), 9:26, 9:25, 9:22, 9:20, 9:48 (hill), 9:53, 9:50, 10:24
To work on: pacing. First 2 miles too fast, thus the graudal slow down towards the end. The last 3 miles were killer. My legs were shot and they felt like dead weight. They didn't seem that fast but gosh be golly they were.

I just don't understand how some runners are just naturally faster and I have to work for everything that comes to me. I'll work hard for the improvements but I wished I didn't have to. Why do I strive for something that I'll never be able to reach; which is a faster runner. I just need to be happy with the results but there will always be something to complain about. I think that is what is wrong with being a competitive person with myself. In the end no matter the outcome I'll never be satisfied. I can never be one of those carefree runners. I will always need to run with my watch to know the miles and the pace. I think being so caught up in that I'm sometimes missing the point. Sometimes the sport of running is so frustrating. But other times it's the greatest feeling in the world. It's hard to mesh those two feelings together. I think once put altogether a PR could be made that I'm proud of.

1 comment:

Emily said...

Melissa, look at it this way -- as you get faster, shaving of X percent results in less actual minutes shaved off -- with the same effort! (does that make sense?)