Saturday, January 9, 2010

Back into Competition


I've had a competitive itch for a while since I stopped bike racing back in 2001 (the photo to the left happens to be from that last race). Soon after I stopped bike racing, I launched my software company and had two kids. After getting back into racing shape in 2008 and acquiring my USA Cycling race license, I ended up getting the same knee pain that took me out of racing back in 1997. A real bummer! I carried over the conditioning I had into cross country skiing and did a few races last winter. I had a blast! It was really fun, even though I wasn't really able to train to the level that I wanted.

I was always reluctant to run due to my history of knee pain, often called "runners knee", but noticed I could run mostly without pain. In March I decided at the last minute to run the Holyoke St Patrick's Day 10K and did reasonably well with a pace of about 6:30 with less than 2 weeks of training. After the Holyoke race, I set myself a goal of running a fast marathon while I was still young. I bought Pete Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning and began training for the Hartford Marathon hoping to run it in under 3 hours. It helped that two others in my office were also training for the same marathon.

I've been in a lot of tough athletic events in the past, including 120 mile bike races, 7-day stage races, team time trials, and cross country ski races, but I can't remember being in so much pain and so sore from any of these other events as I was at the end of the marathon. Marathoning is a true feat of the human body. I succeeded in my goal with a time of 2:58 and want to run another one even faster.

1 comment:

  1. Way to pick up marathoning! 2:58 is an awesome time. And that was your first? I ran my first just happy to finish!

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