Monday, May 4, 2009

Half Full, Half Empty, Half Marathon

I don't like it when I'm confused about my performance post race and it seems that this is happening more and more frequently recently. The Long Island Half Marathon on May 3 unfortunately is no exception to this phenomena. Looking back on this day seems to have gotten me in a classic half full/half empty mindset.

First the half full side:

  • I set a PR for the half marathon by almost 23 minutes (22:47).
  • I set a PR for the first 10k even though I was holding back a bit. This PR should be short lived as I have high hopes for the NYRR Healthy Kidney 10K on 5/16/09.
  • I was able to run the whole thing (save for while drinking at the water stops but I don't count that).
  • Since I finished the race successfully, I don't have as much concern heading into the run leg of EagleDay. If I couldn't finish this race, I probably would have been a mental mess. Some might say what's the difference.
  • My fastest miles were at the end. I negative split the race. If I knew how I did this, that would be something much better.
  • I beat SisMB and DocWannaBe's previous half marathon times.
  • I didn't find a new and inventive way to injure myself. Training is resuming immediately.

How can you consider this anything but a home run? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, ROCKSTAR Now, the half empty side:

  • Even though my weight is getting lower, it isn't moving as much and fast as it should. I feel that this is the biggest (pun intended) thing holding me back.
  • I look very fat in the pictures that I've seen. No one seems to appear fatter.
  • Many of the people that finished before me seem slow. That means I'm still slow. I was hoping (perhaps dreaming) of a slightly faster time.
  • I wasn't able to hold a pace that most folks consider slow. Fortunately, my body recovered a bit during the race and I was able to pick it up (to get to "slow").
  • I felt thirsty during the race. This means I didn't drink enough.
  • My HR was too high (peaking at 174, averaging 156).
  • This time would translate into 1 5:18:51 using the McMillan Calculator. I want to go sub 5:00:00 at NYC this November. That is a harder course so there is much more work to do.
  • I got a little crazy as the times were originally reported as gun times, not net times - it isn't as if I qualified for anything of note.

So, why am I not ecstatic? Otherwise worded, what would have made me giddy? Yes, I hit my goals stated beforehand but perhaps it was that I had a shot at sub-2:30:00. Maybe that was unreasonable or a tease but I wonder how much of this outlook could have changed if I had those 72 seconds? 2:29:59 seems soooo much faster than 2:31:11. Maybe that would have done it. Maybe not.

While I'm still deciding if the Long Island Half Marathon glass is half empty or half full, the glass for the half iron will be completely full but we'll be emptying them all during the celebration afterwards.

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