Bring it
In my previous post, the one that apparently took me the entire summer to write, I quickly stated that I wasn’t sure what my NYC plans were–what magic I wanted to run for my marathon #18, and on my birthday, no less–but I think I finally got the motivation I needed to a) be real with myself, b) admit aloud what I’ve been marinating over for several months and c) just say f-it and go balls to the walls.
My plan? Have nearly as good a race in NYC as I did in April, and go for a 3:35-3:40.
My training has been strong, my speedwork solid, my races good, and right now anyway, the weather looks favorable. It appears that I’ll be missing Frankenstorm, though I might get rained on a lil on marathon Sunday.
As you might recall, April’s Christie Clinic Marathon brought me a 3:34, a new PR (by about three minutes, one that apparently took four years and a pregnancy to shatter), as well as my fifth BQ. Urbana-Champaign was a relatively flat course, with just some periodic rollers, so it was leaps and bounds different from what I’ll be experiencing in NYC… or so I’ve been told.
My thinking for shooting for a 3:35-3:40 in NYC is that lowballing myself a lil will prepare me to really go after that which I’m seeking most in 2013… and this is what I’ve grappled with admitting for a while.
I’m gonna break 3:30 in 2013.
Perhaps in Houston in January.
Or maybe at Eugene in April.
Possibly at an as-yet-to-be-decided fall marthon.
But it’s gonna happen.
Any reasonable predictors (technological or personnel, haha) say that I’m capable of it.
I’m ready to see it through, and NYC–a hard course, with a ton of people, with conditions that will probably be more stressful to me than any other course I’ve run in a while–will be a good stepping-stone to it.
What initially get me fired up about this was Matt’s post over at NoMeatAthlete, basically about how if we don’t balls-up (excuse the crude and vulgar language; it’s mine, not his) and really go after what we’re shooting for– really, in a word, to make ourselves vulnerable by telling ourselves AND OTHERS what we want to achieve– we’re shortchanging ourselves and in a way, setting ourselves up for failure.
For whatever reasons that I don’t entirely know or understand right now, Matt’s post really resonated with me.
Perhaps because I wrote about something similar, back in 2010, just a few weeks shy of my third Chicago marathon–the one I ran 10-12 weeks pregnant–when I was still hedging a bit about finally trying to go for 3:35.
In fact, after reading Matt’s post, I arrived home from teaching and put it all out there for my final speedwork session prior to NYC: 10×800 (with an average split of about a 3:23, if memory serves).
And later that night, when I decided to admit to C what I was thinking, he gave me hell because he said it was like I was delivering a sermon or a motivational speech because of how fired up (yet intentional) I was with my delivery.
I’ll post a pre- and post-race vlog on my YT channel, so check it out in the days immediately preceding and after the marathon because chances are, it’ll take me a while to write a decent recap.
Good things are yet to come. Better things, I should say.