Positive Attitude

Right at the beginning of this book, in the introduction, the author firmly recommends not setting a goal time for finishing your first marathon. "If this is your first marathon," he writes, "you should have only one goal and that should be to complete it. One of the biggest mistakes you could make at this point would be to set a target time in which you want to finish."... "Let's say you set a four-hour goal," and "finish some time after the four-hour time and then feel that you have failed! Can you imagine? You have just gone 26.2 miles for the first time in your life and you feel you have failed. Now that WOULD be a waste."

He makes a good point.

This past week I have been discouraged at my lack of progress in increasing my pace. It has always been something I'm a little ashamed of. I want so badly to run faster. On my Tuesday buddy runs, we run about 4 miles and I have been treating it as a Tempo run. That is, I push my pace so that I'm running fast enough so that it's difficult to carry a conversation. This is supposed to train your body to know what it feels like to run faster over a shorter distance so that you increase your lactic acid threshold. I also tried to concentrate on breathing in a 2:2 pattern as recommended by the Team in Training coach. That is, breathe in for 2 strides and out for 2 strides. It was tough. That's much faster than I usually breathe and I didn't feel like I could inhale fast enough in 2 strides to get enough oxygen into my lungs before I breathed out again. I can imagine that my poor fellow runners thought I was ready to pass out. What with the lack of conversation and the slightly desperate inhaling and exhaling that was going on.

Unfortunately despite the dedication to this new breathing rhythm, starting mid way through mile 3 I got a really bad side stitch. I tried hard to slow down my pace and jog through it, but eventually I had to stop. The pain was stopping me breathing hardly at all. After walking for a little bit we started up again, but the stitch came right back. I tried to dissuade my frustration by telling myself that the stitch meant that I was pushing my boundaries. This was my body's way of saying, "You're at the edge of your ability right now and I'm going to stop you there before you push to a place that you might get injured." I should be proud that I was obviously pushing my limits. That's the way I would improve. This was my attempt at positive thinking. Not bad, right?

Unfortunately when I got back to base and looked over my times for the 4 miles, instead of seeing a new PB I was really disappointed to see that I actually ran slower than the same distance 3 weeks ago, without any side stitch. What's going on? In the last 3 weeks I've run lots of times. I should be improving not getting worse. All my attempts at a positive attitude took a nose dive and when I got home, I fumed and moaned to Sean. The next day I spent time researching how to deal with a stitch and decided it was probably related to the new breathing technique. I resolved to try a 3:3 breathing pattern and continue to work on my cardio fitness, adding different cross training into the weekly plan. Perhaps some swimming?

And then this morning, a friend of mine sent me an email telling me her story. She trained for the Dublin marathon and finished it. Hurray! While training for her second marathon, though, she became frustrated with her pace and pushed really hard to keep up with a faster girl in front of her. In the process, she managed to fracture her pelvis (!) and 3 years later is still recovering. The injury prevents her from running now.

The lesson? Well its obviously better to get the chance to finish the marathon than prevent yourself from even getting to the start line. And as referenced in the first paragraph, I really don't want to run 26.2 miles and be disappointed. No matter what time I finish it in. So, the race is off. My goal is simply to finish. I don't care how long it takes me. I'm going to focus on my ability to get to the finish line, to run twenty six point two miles. Because, really, that would be something to be positive about.