A Passion for Running

Below is a photo of the view outside my window at work. It was taken late last fall after most of the leaves had fallen so it looks a little bleak but, if you use a bit of imagination, you can probably get an idea of how stunning a view it is.

I’m telling ya, even in the winter when sunshine glows off a fresh blanket of snow, I just take one look out this window and am always inspired to get out and run. We are going through a re-org at work and it looks like I will soon be moved to the north side of the building. Once that happens, my view will be of a busy street and some boring old buildings – blah.

So boo-hoo…no more beautiful river valley view. I guess I have to be grateful and enjoy it while I’m here.

Yesterday morning I woke up to a cool, overcast day and met Aaron and Tom for some 1 mile interval work. The plan was to do a couple and then decide on another.

It was an awesome morning for running intervals – not hot and no wind and I had a great time out there especially with all the usual banter that goes on between the three of us.

Aaron and Tom usually like to push the pace to go faster than we plan and yesterday was no exception. The plan was to run 6:45 minute-miles. We headed out and I immediately dropped back because I knew the pace was faster than the plan and whenever that happens I worry about draining the tank for the second, third etc. intervals.

The fellas ran their first interval in 6:30 – in Aaron’s words “the fastest we’ve ever run them”. I ran mine 10 seconds slower which also was a best for me.

The second interval was a bit slower and was run by Aaron and Tom in 6:40 and by me in 6:50.

Tom was on fire yesterday and really wanted to do at least one more interval. Aaron on the other hand is doing the wise thing and healing his knee so he said he was done intervals for the day so he could “live to fight another day” – very wise!

I met Tom in the middle and offered to run one more 800 meter (1/2 mile) interval which we ran exceedingly fast – especially Tom.

Anyway, it was a great morning that made me feel pretty good about my fitness level considering our next marathon is in Edmonton on August 23rd – leaving me with some good training time ahead.

I just counted the running blog links I’ve been collecting – there are 43 including my own!

We have quite the community here don’t we? I wonder how much it will grow?

This post was inspired by a conversation on Richard’s blog where we briefly discussed striving for goals and realizing one’s potential. Here’s the comment from Richard that got me thinking:

“After talking with some coaches and more experienced runners, I believe that most people have a lot more potential than they give themselves credit for.”

The quote got me asking a lot of questions of myself (I have way more questions than answers on this subject):

What is my potential as a runner? Am I at or somewhere near my potential? Assuming I haven’t reached my potential, what will it take to get there?

The first question is, of course, the most difficult one to answer. I’ve been training hard for marathons for about four years now and I think I’ve trained harder and smarter with each successive marathon. Evidence of this is that my personal record was achieved in my last marathon where I had a finishing time of 3:42 – roughly an 8:30 minute per mile pace over 26.2 miles.

I am convinced (maybe arrogantly) that on the day of my PR I ran what was, at that point in time, a perfect race under perfect conditions. The weather was perfect – perfect temperature for running with no wind or rain to contend with. I “left it all out on the course” and was completely spent by the end of the marathon. In other words, I don’t THINK I could have run faster for that distance. My mind conquered the pain and successfully pushed through the wall right to the end of the marathon.

But knowing these things doesn’t really answer any of my questions – in fact it just leaves me with more:

Through training and diet, could I further improve my fitness and conditioning and become a better runner and, if so, how much harder and smarter would I have to train and how much time would be taken off my PR by doing so?

Another question; Are limitations I’ve created in my own mind preventing me from reaching a higher potential? Today, I have the belief that with proper training and perfect running conditions I have the potential to run a 3:30 marathon but I have to admit this belief is just a hunch based only on experiences I’ve had until now. Is this hunch cheating me from doing better? Is it possible I have the potential to run a 3:15 Boston Marathon qualifying time? Are my past experiences unduly influencing the chances of achieving my real potential?

To be sure, my experience with marathons is that improving one’s PR by even 5 or 10 minutes is a very very difficult thing to do but maybe I’m just under-confident or maybe there are other factors…uh-oh looks like it’s time for still more questions…

Throughout most of my training I’ve had small children at home which has meant I rarely get a good nights sleep. Christopher is now at the age where he should start sleeping through the night so I wonder if getting good amounts of rest will help?

Although I am very slim and don’t have a gut hangin’ over my belt, I have very weak core muscles. I recently spent an hour in the gym with Aaron learning some leg exercises where I found out that I have very little strength in that area as well. Okay okay – the total admission is that I’m in some serious need of total body strength training. Aaron has even said I might be a force to be reckoned with if I spent some time in the gym. I wonder…if I spent a few hours a week in the gym how much I might improve?

I’m not sure exactly what I’ve learned about myself from asking these questions. Perhaps it’s simply that I need to keep working on improving myself as Sean would say – “one step at a time” and that as I do so, my potential will reveal itself. I guess asking these questions has also shed light on some places to start the journey…

…running is so much like life don’t you think?