A.M. Total of 7. Decided to take Jacob for the full mile. Jenny and Julia joined us. This was the first time in his life that he's run the full mile. I told him he could run as slow as he wanted. He ended up doing 9:15 with the splits of 2:16, 2:17, 2:20, 2:22. The conditions were not ideal - about 20 F, he was wearing a thick coat. I was quite impressed with that. Benjamin at his age (5 years and 4.5 months) had a PR of 8:47, but it was not done the first time around, not in those conditions, and he was mentally determined to get the record. I think Jacob is our most talented runner in the family so far. He just needs to work on self-confidence and determination, but that will come with age. Then I ran 5 with Benjamin. With a mile to go he needed 7:01 to catch 7:30 average, so I challenged him to do that to test his health. He was volunteering 6:24 pace on some stretches. I thought - this pace gives you 2:47 in the marathon, and it feels so easy. If only I could run just that on Saturday it would be so nice. Maybe I should volunteer to pace the ladies for the OTQ, this would give me an honorable excuse to run 2:47 and avoid the possibility of finishing in some embarrassing time like 2:42 after trying to run what I should and running into the limits of my health. No, I should not even think that, but run an honest race, and if I run into the limits of my health, then let it be so, and let me learn humility. Benjamin picked it up to 92 after 0.5 left to go, then said he was feeling weak. But that fired up my tempo pace engine, and I did not want to shut it down. So I told him to coast to the finish while I kept going. I ended up doing the last quarter in 86, he did it in 95. So coming into the Rocket City marathon I have the following hierarchy of goals: - Goal 101 - avoid the need for serious medical attention and be able to drive back to the airport at the end of everything.
- Goal 102 - finish the race.
- Goal 201 - finish the race under 2:40.
- Goal 202 - finish the race under 2:37:25 - my time in 2003.
- Goal 301 - under 2:35:00
- Goal 302 - under 2:34:15 - TOU time this year
- Goal 303 - under 2:33:21 - UVM time this year, fastest marathon this year
- Goal 304 - under 2:31:58 - fastest time in the last two years
- Goal 401 - under 2:30:32 - honest course PR
- Goal 402 - under 2:30:00
- Goal 403 - under 2:29:00
- Goal 404 - under 2:27:46 - non-St. George PR discounting the short DesNews course in 2004
- Goal 501 - under 2:25:00
- Goal 601 - under 2:22:00
- Goal 701 - under 2:19:00
In setting these goals I decided to start with the basics - goals 101 and 102, then gradually progress upwards. Too many failures, if not most can be attributed to the neglect of some basics. We must pay due respect to the basics. At the same time while taking care of the basics we must not neglect shooting for the stars. Thus I put up quite a range of goals that are unlikely to be attained in this race. Nevertheless, if things are going well, I do not ever want to think "I am done, I have no higher goal to shoot towards".
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