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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   2225 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 29, 2023

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So, anyway, despite the fact that I'm feeling pretty well, I won't be running a full marathon in 2023 because I don't feel that I've done the relevant training to put in a legitimate effort at the distance. Instead, I'll settle for a small half marathon to close out the year, try for one more personal best, and see what happens.

I ran at a D1 university. after getting out of college, I took a break from running, then planned to get back into it and really train for a full marathon. Any time an opportunity came up, I passed on it because I wasn't prepared to run my best possible marathon. A wife and kids later, I'm in my mid 30s and have never run a full marathon, and will never run my best marathon.

One of my running buddies was a 4:08 miler in college and ran with his D1 team up through 10K cross-country and doesn't have any real interest in local races for exactly that reason - he's older, chunkier, and slower, so those college times are never coming back and he has no impulse to post slower times with a tradeoff of increased injury risk. Instead, he's just a pretty fast dude that cruises with whatever pace group before we all get a beer.

I don't know whether I'm unfortunate to lack that experience or lucky that I get to keep getting faster, but I didn't start running until my late 20s, so I don't have these problems! I have enough experience to treat marathons very differently than every shorter distance though, so I don't have any real impulse to run another when I'm not up to going hard (I've run 5 at actual race effort, a couple more that weather/injuries didn't cooperate and scrapped that plan, and a couple more after that as a pacer). At some point, I won't be able to get any faster and I'll have to think about whether I want longer distances, age-graded goals, or something else, but for now I'll keep working on it.

I did not run at a D1 University, but was fit in college, and got my Marathon done right before graduating to check off the box haha. Knew it was only going to get harder from there.

will never run my best marathon.

If you ever run a marathon, you will have run your best marathon.

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