Objective: general aerobic (& psychotherapy, lol) Taper countdown: 17 days.
Weather: Fog, mid 50s F 15 min. abs & wts Spent most of the run trying to work out some personal issues in my mind. Running is great for that. On a slightly less personal note, I've been wondering lately about bell curves. I think if we put all the finish times from a large marathon on a graph, some kind of bell curve would emerge. And if we knew what kind of training each finisher did leading up to race day (both quality and volume), that could somehow be graphed in a bell curve as well. This is just speculation on my part, but I think I'd be on the slower-runner side of the hump in the first graph and on the higher-training side of the hump in the second. Something about this imagined scenario strikes me as unfair. I know that my training isn't exactly that of an elite, and I am nearly 50 years old, and have only been running for about 6.5 years -- but sometimes it just seems like I'm working so hard, asking for so little, and not getting the payoff. (Thank goodness I love running at any speed, or I don't think I would choose to continue.) I can live with this apparent injustice, but I long to know whether it will change and what might change it. I suspect the following factors would make a difference during the next couple of years: consistent mileage throughout the year, not just spring to fall; more speed work, again throughout the year; the simple passage of time and the cumulative effect of running. (Might the latter be canceled out by aging?) Numerous times I've heard and read runners refer to 8:30 minute miles as their "easy" pace, often with a depreciatory tone. I can only peek over the top of the bell curve at them enviously and sigh. | 