Daniel: What spot? Hey, how come you didn't tell me you were goin' fishing?
Miyagi: You not here when I go.
Daniel: Well, maybe I wanted to go, you ever think of that?
Miyagi: You karate training.
Daniel: I'm *what*? I'm bein' your goddamn *slave* is what I'm bein' here man, now c'mon we made a deal here!
Miyagi: So?
Daniel: So? So, you're supposed to teach and I'm supposed to learn! For 4 days I've been bustin' my ass, and haven't learned a goddamn thing!
Miyagi: You learn plenty.
Daniel: I learn plenty, yeah, I learned how to sand your decks maybe. I washed your car, paint your house, paint your fence. I learn plenty!
Miyagi: Ah, not everything is as seems...
Last year while I was running my last long run I was fortunate enough to have a good friend and good runner Nick Mayernick with me. He's a really fast runner and has been doing it for a long time so I used the 17 miler as a good opportunity to pick his brain about everyting from VO2 capacity to training methods. I remember asking him "the longest run at goal pace I'll have completed before the race is less than 11 miles, how the hell am I going to do 26.2 at that pace?" His response (which had it been in an ancient Chinese voice would have been perfect) "everything you've done during training will come together during the race. The long runs, the speed work, the tempo runs, you will use it all during your race." "I get it, it's like the Karate Kid!!!" I said. And from then on, it made total sense to me. I love being a child of the 80's so this comparison worked just perfect for me.
Today I ran that same stretch of road where I had my Karate-like epiphony and thought a lot about my training and whether or not I would be ready. I had to do 12 miles at my goal pace which was not going to be easy....nor should it. But, like Daniel-san, I had to put trust into my training and hope it worked out.
It's been a tough and grueling schedule lately. Last weeks 55 miles took a lot out of me and my body is feeling the effects. This week was shorter in terms of mileage, but I have been upping the lifting and core work to improve my gait and overall leg strength. Mentally I've been pretty burnt out. It's hard to get motivated for my speed work lately, and I even took a rest day on Wednesday just because I was so destroyed from the 12 mile speed work on the treadmill the night before. I was happy my schedule was a little more stable though, and I wanted a strong end to the week with these 12 miles to cap it all off.
I have been paying a lot of attention to HOW I run my longer goal pace runs because I'm picking up on things that are very helpful. I've realized that it's easier for me to start out a little slower for the first mile or so, because I can always run my last two miles faster, so overall it works out. Trying to start out AT goal pace, and hold it the whole time takes more out of me and makes things tougher at the end. Knowing that, I started out today with a 30 sec debt after two miles. A little more than I wanted, but I had 10 miles to make it up. I like the chase. SHIT! 4 miles in and I was still losing ground. Not as badly as the first two, but now I'm about 36 sec behind. Miles 5 and 6 I had it down to about 31 seconds, no sweat, 5 sec faster for 6 miles and I'm ok. Mile 7, W....T....F!? 6:47, now I'm back up around a 40+ sec deficit! At this point I wanted to just throw in the towel. "it's ok if you fall short today, it was a tough day, just get the miles in" I told myself. Just then I looked down and saw my pace was down around 6:20 or so.......there was still hope. All that painting the fence and waxing cars was starting to come out!! By the end of mile 10 I had shaved off enough time I just needed to run the last two at sub 6:30 to accomplish my goal for today. I felt like I shifted into the last gear I had and watched my pace drop to about 6:15.......I counted down the last 1.5 miles like I was on the track "6 laps to go" I told myself....."just stay here." I didn't sprint to the end, I just held on to what I knew I could do....mile 12 beeped at me and I looked down as I stopped my watch. 1:19:42, 18 seconds ahead of schedule! I gave a good "WOOOOOOOOOO!" to the skies like I always do after a good run, I think it's important to celebrate a good run, and today was a good run.
I trusted myself today much like Daniel-san had to trust Mr. Miyagi......I fought it for 8 miles but when I finally let go and let my training take over, I was rewarded. Maybe not as cool as doing the crane and kickin' some A-hole in the face, but maybe I'll save that for the end of my next race. For now, I'm gonna find a little Asian man to rub me down....wait, what?
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