Finishing is Easy: The Move from Completing to Excelling
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 12:20PM by Melissa Field
I often drift fondly into the memory of my first marathon. This was a golden time in my life. It was autumn in Philadelphia, the Phillies had just won the World Series, the air was crisp, the streets awash in the colors of fall, the skyline covered in blue, the course lined with 30 of my closest friends. It was perfect. All I had to do was finish and I would fulfill a lifelong dream: to become a marathoner. I didn’t run exceptionally fast but I ran with joy and pride. I was in love with running. I didn’t care about racing. I cared about finishing.
Fast forward 2 years and I am a slave to my GPS watch, a slave to pace prediction calculators, a slave to improvement. I look back on my first marathon fondly because it’s easier to finish than it is to improve. And, once you’ve finished a marathon, you inevitably set your sights on improvement. It is inescapable and almost immediate. The second I crossed the finish line of my first marathon, I thought, “When can I do that again and do it faster?”
But I didn’t get faster. I signed up for race after race and entertained visions of setting a personal record each time. I slowly felt my joy turn into frustration. Finishing was not enough. I knew I could finish, but I wanted to be good—or at least my own personal definition of good. Then I moved to Colorado and spent months crawling up trails at high altitude. My pace slowed even further. I was exhausted, pushing hard during every run, but never improving.
I didn’t realize it at the time but my race performance was stagnating because I wasn’t changing a thing. I lamented to a Boston-qualifying friend and she started asking questions: How many miles to you run a week? How often do you rest? What do you eat? How much speedwork do you do? What percent of your weekly miles constitute your long run?
I struggled to come up with answers because I didn’t know. I didn’t keep track of any of these things. Throwing on your shoes and heading out for a run is easy, but improvement is a hard science. And science is all about data. In order to know what you’re doing wrong, you have to first know what you’re doing. It sounds simple but many of us struggle to follow a basic training plan, let alone journal and graph our every move. This is where TrainingPeaks come in handy. Once a run or meal is recorded, everything else is taken care of. At a quick glance, you can see a history of your data. The available plans take into account various levels and goals. Signing-up for a plan helped me immediately see my mistakes. The first instruction offered—“run on a flat course.” For 4 solid months, I had been running trails with a minimum of a 400 ft. elevation climb— on every run. No wonder I was so tired!
Even experienced runners make rookie mistakes, but mistakes hinder improvement and suck the joy out of running. Regain and record knowledge and the memories of a first marathon can be replaced by the memories of a best marathon.
Melissa Field was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado. As a Colorado kid, Melissa grew up skiing, mountain biking, hiking, and running. After earning a B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder and studying abroad with the School for International Training (SIT) in Ireland, Melissa went to work for a Clinton official specializing in Northern Ireland. While overseas, Melissa developed her two passions: writing and public service. At age 23, she published her first feature article in Irish Connections Magazine and began a career as a freelance writer. A few years later, she moved to Philadelphia to work in public policy and to earn a Master’s degree in Public/Government Administration at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government.
While in Philadelphia, Melissa missed her active Colorado childhood and started running road races in all major eastern cities. In early 2008, she started a monthly running column for Philadelphia Runner. In addition to the running column, Melissa continued to work in public policy and spent the summer of 2009 working for the Bureau of Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. You can visit Melissa's webiste here.
Reader Comments (1)
Wonderful article with useful advice. Record keeping is a must for progress in any athletic program but it is so easy to forget in the hurry to just get on with it. A down to earth reminder. Thanks.