It went well. Conditions were nearly ideal: overcast, cool and damp. The food I brought (two energy bars--one for 60 minutes, one for 120 minutes--and a bag of gumdrops) went down pretty easily, and at no point did I have an upset stomach.
I ran steadily through six towns: Wellesley, S. Natick, Sherborn, Medfield, Dover, and Needham, and ultimately hit my goal: 2 hours, 40 minutes; a total distance of 21 miles, averaging 7:36 pace. The nutrition must have worked as I didn't bonk, but things got difficult around 2:30, all the same. This time it was my calves that ultimately slowed me down. It seems once I solve one problem I'm on to the next one.
Been wrestling with some annoying cross-talk between the ears as I progress through this training cycle. Part of me looks at the difficulties I've had coming to grips with longer runs and wants to conclude that I'm not suited--that at 170lbs I'm just too big, or my muscle type is incompatible, or some other reason. Another part of me thinks that those words taste like excuses, that it's hard for everyone, not just me.
I'm thinking these thoughts now because I couldn't have run another 5 miles today, not in the "oh, that would be really hard," sense, but in the "I thought I could do 10 pullups--I've done 12--I really can't do a 13th" sense. My calves were just cooked. This was familiar--it was a substantial part of the reason why I had to stop at Keybank. Now I'm thinking about the last two marathons, and the 3rd one rapidly approaching, and the doubts are piling on.
Nothing new there. Faith vs Doubt, just like the song says. So it seems I have to do something which I am temperamentally unsuited to do: believe, in the face of some fairly compelling contrary evidence, that this time it's going to be different, that this time I'm going to put all the pieces together.
Believe, and buy a jump-rope.
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