J.S.
I’m running in the 113th Annual Around the Bay Road Race in Hamilton this weekend. So I went today to pick up my race kit at the Running Expo. And who should I see there but John Stanton! THE John Stanton. I actually turned to Delia and said, “Oh my god, it’s John Stanton.” For those of you who aren’t in the know, John Stanton is the man who started the chain of Running Room Stores. He’s written books and essentially started a revolution that made the dream of running distances attainable by mere mortals like myself. He is the creator of the 10 and 1 philosophy. And it took me about an hour, but I finally worked up the nerve to speak to him.
He had a bunch of pace bands laid out in front of him on a table. He asked me if I was running in the race and I said I was running the 30k. And he asked when I hoped to finish and I smiled and pointed at the “Upright and Smiling” paceband. He grinned. I said that my aspiration is to use this as a gauge to determine whether I am capable of doing the Mississauga Marathon in May. And I know he was trying to build my confidence when he said, “Anyone who can do the Around the Bay can do a marathon,” but he scared the shit out of me. He explained the race is relatively easy and flat in the first half and then for the second half, it’s rolling hill after rolling him with a bruiser at kilometre 25 (I’ve heard the legends about that one).
So now I’m realizing that this is a turning point for me. Not only is it a longer distance than I’ve run before, but it’s a distance I have never done before. I’m beginning to run races where most folks don’t run the full distance when training beforehand. That’s far.
A 5k race is probably 100% training. If you train, you will finish. Even if you have a bad sleep and eat a steak dinner fifteen minutes before and develop a freak blister on your Achilles, the likelihood that you can stumble through those five kilometres, if you have trained, is very high. A 10k is 90% training and 10% luck because if you twist your ankle, you might not finish. But even if the conditions are bad (for my first 10k, I drank a diet coke an hour before-hand and was pretty dehydrated during the whole thing), you’ll finish that too. A half marathon is probably 70% training and 30% luck. During all three of my half’s, I’ve developed an achy right knee half-way through and still managed to get my body across the finish line. However, I think that in committing to 30 kilometres, I may have entered 50%/50% territory. And in a funny way, it’s liberating. It’s two days before the race and I don’t feel compelled to squeeze in more training because I think that the rest is in someone else’s hands.
So I’ll get new batteries for my watch. I’ll charge my ipod. I’ll eat pasta, ice my joints and pop Advil. But I’ll also crumple my race bib before pinning it to my shirt.
I’m running in the 113th Annual Around the Bay Road Race in Hamilton this weekend. So I went today to pick up my race kit at the Running Expo. And who should I see there but John Stanton! THE John Stanton. I actually turned to Delia and said, “Oh my god, it’s John Stanton.” For those of you who aren’t in the know, John Stanton is the man who started the chain of Running Room Stores. He’s written books and essentially started a revolution that made the dream of running distances attainable by mere mortals like myself. He is the creator of the 10 and 1 philosophy. And it took me about an hour, but I finally worked up the nerve to speak to him.
He had a bunch of pace bands laid out in front of him on a table. He asked me if I was running in the race and I said I was running the 30k. And he asked when I hoped to finish and I smiled and pointed at the “Upright and Smiling” paceband. He grinned. I said that my aspiration is to use this as a gauge to determine whether I am capable of doing the Mississauga Marathon in May. And I know he was trying to build my confidence when he said, “Anyone who can do the Around the Bay can do a marathon,” but he scared the shit out of me. He explained the race is relatively easy and flat in the first half and then for the second half, it’s rolling hill after rolling him with a bruiser at kilometre 25 (I’ve heard the legends about that one).
So now I’m realizing that this is a turning point for me. Not only is it a longer distance than I’ve run before, but it’s a distance I have never done before. I’m beginning to run races where most folks don’t run the full distance when training beforehand. That’s far.
A 5k race is probably 100% training. If you train, you will finish. Even if you have a bad sleep and eat a steak dinner fifteen minutes before and develop a freak blister on your Achilles, the likelihood that you can stumble through those five kilometres, if you have trained, is very high. A 10k is 90% training and 10% luck because if you twist your ankle, you might not finish. But even if the conditions are bad (for my first 10k, I drank a diet coke an hour before-hand and was pretty dehydrated during the whole thing), you’ll finish that too. A half marathon is probably 70% training and 30% luck. During all three of my half’s, I’ve developed an achy right knee half-way through and still managed to get my body across the finish line. However, I think that in committing to 30 kilometres, I may have entered 50%/50% territory. And in a funny way, it’s liberating. It’s two days before the race and I don’t feel compelled to squeeze in more training because I think that the rest is in someone else’s hands.
So I’ll get new batteries for my watch. I’ll charge my ipod. I’ll eat pasta, ice my joints and pop Advil. But I’ll also crumple my race bib before pinning it to my shirt.
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