The Running thread

____no5 said:
Yesterday I run Shanghai marathon which turned to be the most difficult race of my life.
  • Early October I got injured and up until 2 weeks ago, I was doing my training while limping. That took a toll of my aerobic capacity, i.e., on 21 September I did 25km long run with a pace of 5:40/km and HR 138. And two weeks before the race 21km with a pace of 5:38/km and HR 145.
  • At 15km within the race, my socks got a fold underneath my feett and started to hit me hard, to the point that my feet started to numb. That went away at 21km but then...
  • At 23km I had a cramp! I could barely move in the start, but then I grabbed a salt stick from my reserves and started to run again, though while suffering for the next 19km of the race!
  • At 27km my left tailor-made insole started to hit me hard, which stayed until the end of the race resulting to a big blister.
  • At 30km I realized in terror that my watch was off by a lot!! This is a psychological torture at the end of the race, especially such a difficult one and it's hard not to break you. You are in a world of pain, you turn your wrist and read 37.7km thank god, I have just a little bit left and then you see the sign at the edge of the street with a big fat 37km, essentially a kilometre more.
I don't know how I managed not to quit, especially in the end when I was running blind, but in the end after having run 43km at a pace of 5.03/km my official time was 3:38:09 for 42.2km of course.

3:38:09 (5:10/km) gives a marathon PB of 11 minutes
PB 30k 2:32:19
2nd best Half Marathon 1:45:43 (5:01/km)
2nd best 20k 1:40:03
3rd best 10k 49:57 (5:00/km)
:cheers:
Click to expand...

Well done!

On a related note, the other day I met a local secondary school teacher who ran the London marathon last year in a time of 2h 35m 50s!!!
 
That is a seriously good time, especially for someone with a full time job, though working for school makes it easier. Impressive nonetheless!
A 35-year old woman from my team did a 20+ minutes improvement from 3:29 last January to 3:09 yesterday. Jaw dropping improvement.
 
It’s hugely remarkable and I don’t want to take anything from his achievement but truth is that it’s still a time that can be managed by mortals. Especially someone below 40 ~45 with a steady governmental job it’s ideal.
I think the real-deal threshold is 2:20:00 below which we are talking pre-elite level, with elite being sub 2:10:00.

I have a few people in my team working full time in private sector that are consistently doing below 2:45:00 in their late 50s and another in his early 60s managed a sub 2:30:00 last Sunday in Shanghai!
And I saw the video of a 75 year old that did a sub 2:45:00 in the same race! 75 years old! Those 2 cases are as far as it goes, other than elite and they show us where we could really reach.

When there is consistency, improvement is inevitable, if I continue like this and stay injured free I could manage a sub 3:00:00 in a few years time well inside my 50s.
 
The further one goes the more they realize that everything is possible. But those endless possibilities should not stop us from celebrating our victories in the present tense, which is the only thing that we really have.
 
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