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beige_alertLast month I was jokingly wondering how much running you can do while still claiming that running is not your sport and you're really not that into it.
Anyway, I've signed up for a formal, organized, official half-marathon, to be held at the end of January in Milwaukee. INDOORS! Because in Milwaukee in January, you probably don't want to schedule that for outdoors. It's held at the running track that surrounds the indoor 400-meter long track speed skating oval at the ice center.
I have actually run 21.1km once now, on my own. It took me 2:05. The thing about doing some sort of sport like this on your own is that it's not obvious how you compare to others. Now, the easiest number of all to look up is the world record. It takes just seconds with google. The record times for full marathons, twice that distance, are just under that time. Well! The record for the half marathon is 58:33. I'm not sure I can run that fast at all, even for 100 meters. It's like the pro cyclists averaging speeds in a time trial that I cannot reach at all without a steep hill to descend.
World records aside, as far as I can tell a two hour half marathon is, if not a great time, basically reasonable for a beginner.
For all that I used to claim to not like running, I have come to like it. Some sort of competitive urge sets in to try to set better times or take on longer distances. For me it's much more of a pure athletic thing than the bicycling. Mostly I'm going somewhere on the bicycle, and want to save some energy for whatever I'm going to do when I get there, and for the trip back. Out in the real world, you go pretty fast on a bicycle and thus quickly encounter intersections, traffic lights, stop signs, and all that. A fast trip home from work is partly a matter of luck at the intersections. Lots of red lights and the trip will be slower. Bicycling involves a lot of thinking about traffic and how to navigate through it safely.
Running is slower, especially for slow runners like me, and it's easy enough to zig-zag around the neighborhood for 21km without ever having to stop anywhere. It's a pure athletic event, no navigation, no traffic safety, no destination at all. Just the Garmin on my wrist with the speed, distance, time, and heart rate data.
The thing about admitting that I like running is that I'll have to stop making fun of those crazy runners and their crazy sport. No more claiming that it's crazy to run twenty kilometers when a sensible person would get on a bicycle and ride one hundred-twenty kilometers, or would ski 20 km at a temperature of -20°C. Anyway, somehow, when written down like that, my old favorite activities don't really sound any less crazy than the running.
Anyway, I've signed up for a formal, organized, official half-marathon, to be held at the end of January in Milwaukee. INDOORS! Because in Milwaukee in January, you probably don't want to schedule that for outdoors. It's held at the running track that surrounds the indoor 400-meter long track speed skating oval at the ice center.
I have actually run 21.1km once now, on my own. It took me 2:05. The thing about doing some sort of sport like this on your own is that it's not obvious how you compare to others. Now, the easiest number of all to look up is the world record. It takes just seconds with google. The record times for full marathons, twice that distance, are just under that time. Well! The record for the half marathon is 58:33. I'm not sure I can run that fast at all, even for 100 meters. It's like the pro cyclists averaging speeds in a time trial that I cannot reach at all without a steep hill to descend.
World records aside, as far as I can tell a two hour half marathon is, if not a great time, basically reasonable for a beginner.
For all that I used to claim to not like running, I have come to like it. Some sort of competitive urge sets in to try to set better times or take on longer distances. For me it's much more of a pure athletic thing than the bicycling. Mostly I'm going somewhere on the bicycle, and want to save some energy for whatever I'm going to do when I get there, and for the trip back. Out in the real world, you go pretty fast on a bicycle and thus quickly encounter intersections, traffic lights, stop signs, and all that. A fast trip home from work is partly a matter of luck at the intersections. Lots of red lights and the trip will be slower. Bicycling involves a lot of thinking about traffic and how to navigate through it safely.
Running is slower, especially for slow runners like me, and it's easy enough to zig-zag around the neighborhood for 21km without ever having to stop anywhere. It's a pure athletic event, no navigation, no traffic safety, no destination at all. Just the Garmin on my wrist with the speed, distance, time, and heart rate data.
The thing about admitting that I like running is that I'll have to stop making fun of those crazy runners and their crazy sport. No more claiming that it's crazy to run twenty kilometers when a sensible person would get on a bicycle and ride one hundred-twenty kilometers, or would ski 20 km at a temperature of -20°C. Anyway, somehow, when written down like that, my old favorite activities don't really sound any less crazy than the running.
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Date: 2009-11-05 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-05 04:29 am (UTC)Good luck on the marathon. It's something I couldn't ever do but have always sort of wanted to.
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Date: 2009-11-05 05:51 am (UTC)I am the same (just at a much lower level). I always said I hate jogging, now I jog every morning for a couple of minutes routinely so my circulation gets up. What do I care about yesterday's babble, eh?