For being a "volume guy" and having nothing in the way of natural speed, my race times run somewhat counter to what you might expect, or what calculators indicate. It seems that, decent mileage aside, I can pretty well assume I'll slightly underperform as the race distance increases. Looking at my PR's, there aren't any exceptions to this. Could this simply be a pacing issue? Wouldn't really doubt it.
When getting passed, does anyone not look at the person now ahead of you and think "My pace looks like that? Oh god, surely I'm not that slow. And they're pulling away from me? Which means... oh no..." This happened, like, eight times to me this weekend.
Half marathons are still a pretty chill distance though. No searing oxygen debt, and it's over before your legs can really go to hell.
Some non-running things:
When you get home and the dogs are like OH MY GOD I THOUGHT YOU'D NEVER COME HOME BUT YOU DID AND HERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW LET ME JUMP ALL OVER YOU life basically peaks. This happens every day, so that's a pretty good state of affairs. Dogs are the best.
Just try to be this happy about something as often as possible, and things will be ok. The tao of dog.
Larabars are the best packaged food product, an assertion I believe with all my being to be true. They have seasonal flavors, one of which is pumpkin pie. That will get all the focus, but snickerdoodle is the real star. (Gingerbread is whatever.) It tastes like a fucking cookie. A great fucking cookie. They say it's just fruit and nuts but that's bullshit. Pretty sure they're just putting real cookie in there and lying to everyone. I don't care.
Today I realized that I don't know any of the lyrics to many of my favorite songs. Certainly can't understand them when listening, and never bothered to look the lyrics up. The growling, shrieking, screaming, etc., functions almost like another instrument. You understand the vocals in the same way you understand a guitar. But even still, not sure I could explain the appeal to anyone.
I second your Larabar statement - I'll have to search for pumpkin pie.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I ran that half last year and I just about quit running after. No, I'm kidding but it was pretty much agony. Too many hills.
Sounds like you had a great go at 13.1 this year though. Congrats on that.
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