A little less than two years ago, I ran in the KC marathon. There were many positives from the experience but there were also a number of negatives, the biggest being the total time it took me to finish. I know that the main thing is to finish, especially on the first marathon; However, I felt that I really had the potential to do so much better. I finished with a total time of 4:56:58 (a pace of 11:20/mile) I'm glad to have finished strong at the end but still, I couldn't help but hash and rehash everything that I feel contributed to a disappointing performance. I decided to use this blog to review things that I did (or didn't do) to prepare myself for the next marathon I take part in.
The first mistake I made that contributed to all of the other mistakes may surprise you:
I followed the rules.
That's right, I followed the rules. This turned out to be a HUGE mistake in one specific area. The race info states, "For insurance and safety purposes, we do not allow headphones, earbuds, Ipods, radios, and other hearing devices or animals on the course." I took this statement seriously and so for the first time throughout my entire marathon training period that year, I did not run using my Runkeeper app. (Nor did I bring my basset hound along, but I knew better than to do that anyway. He wouldn't make it a mile.)
When I showed up at the race and saw the multitude of folks with headphones, I began to realize that there was no way race officials could police that many people in regards to wearing headphones, etc. and apparently everyone else running the race knew this. At this point, I was disappointed not to have my phone with the app so as to help me pace myself, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I was sorely mistaken. If I had been running by myself, I probably could have done a pretty good job pacing myself for the time I wanted to finish with; However, surrounded by marathoners AND half marathoners made it extremely difficult to determine exactly what pace I was at. I had to time reference and no mile reference for most of the first half of the marathon which led to other factors that negatively influenced my performance. (More to come on those factors in upcoming blog posts.)
So, there you have it. The #1 biggest mistake that I made was following the rules. Rest assured, if I do end up running the KC marathon this year (as I am currently training to), I will not make the same mistake again.
No comments:
Post a Comment