We'll see. Any suggestions?
Update: After I wrote this, my husband woke up and we chatted about this. Before I finished explaining my blah attitude, I "got it." Duh - I have no goal. At peak training last fall, I told myself I would reward myself in the spring with light training and running Boston for fun.
Epic Fail.
For 2 obvious reasons. (1) Hello, my type A personality is never going to let me run a marathon just for fun. My fun is setting a goal, working my arse off and achieving it. (2) My actions completely conflict with my stated goal. I hired a coach and am on a challenging 20+ week program with most weeks in the 50-60 range. While that is not as tough as peaking at 70 mpw, it certainly is not "light." And obviously having a coach puts a lot of pressure on me. People don't hire coaches to participate in a fun run.
Plus the whole "Boston" thing has put a lot of pressure on me. I hated it in 2007. I had trained really hard and had big goals. But I bombed. And the few spectators out there were obnoxious. Add to the fact that I have a TON of family planning to be there. Seriously. My aunt/uncle/their kids live there and plan to come. My parents plan to come from Wisconsin. My mother-in-law plans to come from FL. My sister-in-law and her husband plan to come from Washington DC. Why? Because its Boston. But really, who the hell cares? No one gives a crap about all of the other races I run. And I know, I should be happy that they all want to come. But I hate it. It puts pressure on me that I do not wish to have for this race. Maybe it would be great if I thought I was going to rock it. But I don't.
Selfish? Yes. Be that as it may. I am just not happy with this situation.
So the natural question is, "what are you going to do about this, Mindi?" I don't know. But I need to do something. Training requires a lot of time. It is not worth it to me to give up precious time I do not have unless I am invested. So, these appear to be my options:
1. Charge ahead, get my head in the game and PR at Boston.
2. Pick another race with a better course/less baggage and try to PR.
3. Bag the marathon training this season and train for a 10K or half. Something different. Less miles like I originally promised myself.
Not sure what I want to do. For the first 5 marathons, I was having dramatic improvements (or just crap weather that took me back to a new training regime) and chasing PRs. I went from a 3:53 to a 3:26. For the next 4, my goal was to figure out how to do this while balancing work and family. I went from a 3:46 to a 3:26 PR. Sweet. But now what? I guess I'll need to chew on it for a while. But my instincts say I am likely to bag Boston. Screw Boston. Hahaha.
8 comments:
What! You can totally pr in Boston. Don't be intimidated. You are two years stronger and there probably won;t be a Nor'Easter this time. Seriously, get your head in the game girl and go for it!!!
Although in all honesty, I hated Boston too. I can't see myself going back for a long long time if ever. Maybe we just got a bummer year or something. Still, I think it would be a challenging goal to go for the Boston pr. You might not feel like you're in shape to rock it right now but over the next 3 months a LOT can change, especially if you change the way your thinking about the whole thing. You can run an "easy" course in the Fall!
How 'bout run Boston, but make it a goal to PR at a tune-up race as you will be an a aerobic monster?
I hear ya on the goal thing. I chased 3:15 and finally got it, but thought that maybe eventually get a few minutes faster if I got lucky with weather (oh marathon, you are so cruel). Trying to get round numbers at other distances (sub-1:30, sub-40) is good motivation for me. Ultimately though I know I want to run a faster marathon, so I was kinda just fooling myself.
Still, I think we get in trouble -- get injured -- when we want. It's not the next mile that will get you faster but the next thousand miles, so you have to enjoy running and want nothing more than the next step while you're doing it.
I'm not very good at the goal-less, non-seeking a PR training either. And although you've done the TM training cycle before, perhaps it's run it's course (ha ha ha) and it's not right this time around or it's not worth feeling melancholy about?? I often feel that way about the routes I have available to me here, same thing over and over and over again. Perhaps you just need an injection of CHANGE... get outside, get on a trail, meet up with a buddy and run together on a weekend (if the weekdays aren't possible).
I hope you start feeling better about this round o' training!
Thanks, everyone, this is very helpful. I think part of the big problem is that even after 7 weeks I am slow, my HR is high and I am somewhat sore. I can't help but ask myself at this juncture whether my body needs a break from the marathon. Last time I was like this was in 2008 when I started working. I sloughed it off after 2 slow marathons, but am I up for training my butt off for a 3:30 or 3:35? I don't know. Will everything come together in a few weeks if I trudge on? I don't know.
I did go outside though this am. Nice (much needed) change.
Boston is tough, but FAR from the toughest course out there. You can PR there without a doubt, I think the large group to run with and crowds almost negate the hills.
Consider Eugene!?! That's probably where I'll end up this spring, just to mix things up and it's where Matt would like to go. Fairly flat and a great chance for good weather.
I say go for a PR where ever you end up running, you sounds a lot like me and I need a carrot out there to keep me mentally in the game, for sure!
Funny - I read your post this morning, but didn't have time to comment. By the time I got a few minutes to comment, you had updated with your thoughts and they were very similar to the thoughts I wanted to post this morning! My thoughts were: Mindi either needs to change goals (i.e. run Boston for fun, run for a Boston course PR, etc.) or Mindi needs to change races to achieve her goal (i.e. PR).
I had similar issues when I decided on running The Pig just for fun. I wasn't excited. Then I switched to Illinois and will likely train for PR and I am super excited!
Since you have so many people going to Boston and have paid, what about still doing Boston but trully going into it with idea that is training run, and then running Grandma's for a PR (9 weeks later, I believe). Jen did that and timing wise I believe she thought it worked out well (but then Grandma's weather sucked). I know you are scared off by Grandma's weather, but it is bound to be good this year, because Jen isn't running it. ;-) Plus, if it ends up sucking, I'm running it too and we can always just hang out in the beer tent and drown our sorrows.
Speaking for myself, we all bombed at Boston. But we only live once and it's Boston, so I'm going back to bomb again. I'll set a time goal that I can't meet and work my butt off and miss the goal time and come home wih a finishers medal. You can / will? too!
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