Sunday, January 25, 2009

18 miles this weekend!

Not in one day, but it's a start. I watched Ironman 2008 yesterday and it kind of got me excited about resuming training. Yeah, I'm dealing with cold here, but it's nothing compared to what a lot of the athletes had to do to even compete in Kona. I did 10 yesterday afternoon and another 8 around midday today. Even though it was in the low to mid 20's today, it felt a little warmer because of the sun.

Today's run was interesting because at about mile 2 of my run, I caught up with this guy who ran a similar pace. In the spirit of silent competition, we started to push each other and what was meant to be an easy 6 around the park started to get really brisk. I looked at my GPS live pace and there were points when we were running sub 6:30. I thought I could outrun him, picking up the pace and leaving him a few steps behind going up the hills but he always caught up. I didn't think he could keep up a fast pace for long either because he seemed to have bee breathing pretty loudly from mile 3. We finally struck up a conversation, and thank God for that because I was winded. Turns out he's just started training for the Lake Placid Ironman. His marathon best was 2:45 a couple of years ago.

There's always a part of me that thinks I'm better than I really am that borders on arrogance, albeit a silent one. At times it leads me humble pie serving, other times it kicks up my intensity in competition. What I'm thankful for is that it helps me to make the best use of my facilities, physical or mental.

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