Zeno's Paradox: Shamrock Postmortem

Zeno's Paradox

March 30, 2004 - Shamrock Postmortem

I've been slow to post this as I've not been in much of a blogging mood of late. I did run the Shamrock Shuffle 8K and unfortunately failed to reach any of my goals I set. The race was eight kilometers and my legs started to hurt too much to run at around a pathetic one and a half miles into the race. I missed my time goal of forty minutes by eight and a half minutes, running a 48:37. (The winners were in the low twenties.) So, what went wrong?

First and foremost, I had not been training. I basically went into this race after several years of not having run and it showed. Some part of me was hoping that all the walking I do would help out a bit more than it did, but that was not the case. The results of this sucked, but were not unexpected.

Secondly, it was a bit difficult for me to run in the race. The last race I had been in was in over a dam and surrounding country in around La Junta, Colorado. There were probably less than ten participants per race there. In contrast, the Shuffle had around twenty-five thousand runners. To say that the start of the race was crowded would be an understatement. Now that I know how this works, I'll be better able to deal with this in the future.

Also, I suffer from having two distinct paces - walking and running. For some reason, I have never learned to pace myself well, and as a result I was probably running much too fast at the beginning than was necessary. I need to learn to be able to slow down and conserve energy better than I do at the moment.

So, where now from here? First off, I think a lot of improvement can be had if my body was a bit more in shape and used to the trauma of distance running. I've started training in the mornings in order to build base, but more importantly, get my legs and feet used to the repetitive pounding on the street. After this is no longer an issue (and my feet were killing me during the race), I'm planning on focusing on building up some endurance. If I can get to the point where I can run ten miles without walking - regardless of the pace - then I will be doing well. If I can get to that point and get comfortable doing that, then I'll start training for more strength and speed. There are several marathons in Chicago this summer, but I'd rather focus on the races in the five to ten kilometer range. First, there are more of them since they are easier to put on. Secondly, I think training for those races is more realistic than a marathon at that point, given my time energy. Training for a marathon is a commitment that I'm not eager to take on lightly, but training for some of these shorter ones is doable.

Now, what about training? After taking yesterday off, I somehow managed to get myself out of bed this morning and do a decent loop from my apartment, down to Howard Street and back again. I've walked the path many times on my way to Best Buy, and it seemed like it would make a good training path. Of course, I had to walk a bit, but I'm hoping that as the body toughens up, the walking will become unnecessary. Another good thing about this loop is that it is one that can be opened up quite a bit as needed. I'm pretty much doing a straight down and back at the moment, but there won't be any problems growing the loop to be longer and wider. But first thing is first - I need to get into shape.

If I manage to stick to this - and after the last asswhupping, I probably will - I should end up doing well. There is a five kilometer race at the end of April, and a ten kilometer one at the end of May.

Posted by br284 at 02:51 PM

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