11.24.07
Lost by 11 seconds
I was a little disappointed by my finish at the Gallop and Gorge. No, I was not upset to finish behind Tom and the other guy who showed up. I knew that competing with those 2 would be virtually impossible. Rather, I was disappointed to lose to another guy - Rob Benjamin from 2006. He ran 25:38, and beat my time this year by 11 seconds.
I was on pace to better that time. I went through 3M in 15:17, which was 13 seconds faster than last year. Mile 4 hit me hard, however, and I went through 4M in 20:37, which was just barely ahead of last year’s clip. My finishing push was also a good bit slower, and the final result was 25:49. I was happy with my effort, and don’t think I could have run it faster with any other approach. It was more humid this year, and with similar conditions to last year, I think I would have held on better in the later stages. Several of my teammates also felt this way about the conditions this year.
This competition with myself is what keeps me going, and what drove me out of mini-retirement 3 years ago. It is the ongoing question we all ask: “Can I get better?” Can I find big and little ways to become a more efficient and faster runner?
I cringe when other people, not involved in running or similar competition, say “You are so competitive!” This, in my case, is only partly true. I am not caught up with trying to be the fastest. If I was, I would have quit the sport long ago. I have come in 2nd probably 15 times the number of times I have won. This never got me down, however, if I continued to improve and if I felt that I left everything out there at race time. This is still the case, which is a good thing when you consider who I am running with every time I line up with my teammates.
I am, however, extremely competitive with myself. I expect to beat my times from preceding years when I enter these races, and don’t want to know when that will end. It is an interesting question, though: “When will my consecutive years of training and racing be overwhelmed by my aging?” John and Joan have shown an ageless quality in their performances, and it encourages me that I have some time left, too. I sure hope so, anyway……..
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Dave C. said,
November 25, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Rob asks: “When will my consecutive years of training and racing be overwhelmed by my aging?”
There’s good news and bad news. It depends partly on your age and partly on how many years you have been training and racing hard. The bad news is that at your age the inexorable slowing is likely to start happening real soon. The good news is that it tends to be gradual. While there may be more and more races in which you lose to the Rob Benjamin of the previous year, there are still likely to be occasions on which you beat him. So, the answer to “Can I get better?” becomes “I can get better than I am today” even if “I can’t get better than I used to be.”
For me in recent years (or decades) the key has been what you said about your G&G race: “I was happy with my effort.” I try to race as well as I can given my current circumstances. I would very quickly become despondent if I tried making comparisons with my best years. But, thanks largely to injuries, I have lost to my 2006 self in all of the (admittedly few) races that I ran in both 2006 and 2007. The G&G loss was by 27 seconds and wasn’t at all surprising — I hadn’t run even a quarter-mile at better than or even close to 6 min/mile pace since Four on the Fourth, so was pleased to find it is possible to fake speed-endurance in a race as short as 8K. And although Joan beat me at long last, I was pleased that I managed to get close enough that she knew she was in a race. (The marathon distance is less forgiving. I “discovered” in Richmond two weeks ago that I can’t fake speed-endurance for that distance, struggling badly over the last 8 miles, ending up with a 10-minute positive split and my slowest time since my first marathon way back in 1975.)
My body still seems to know what to do when the gun goes off in a race. What is more disheartening is how much of a struggle the ordinary day-to-day runs have become. Even (or maybe particularly) the “easy” runs are a struggle. And don’t get me started on how much longer recovery takes now.
brent said,
November 25, 2007 at 9:01 pm
rob,
i am the same way. in college i would always say that if i ever stopped consistently improving then i would quit, content that i had gotten all i could out of my body. however, you can’t be too quick to compare single performances and deduce stagnation or regression. you are fit and the overall slope of your performance curve is decidedly positive. take all your workouts, your pumpkin race, your half marathon, and even this race and it still makes for an exciting improvement trajectory. now, when the 10k at nationals is factored in, you will be able draw a “best fit” line that will surely speak of tremendous improvement. present rob kicks past rob’s @$$!
joan said,
November 25, 2007 at 11:37 pm
“But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”
from, Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress
Rob, that bit about how “competitive” you are rings familiar in my life. I still love to beat people - like my current nemesis, Dave C. - and will cough up a lung trying. I, too, seem to operate on automatic pilot when the race gun goes off. One thing I changed in my old(er) age as a runner is my recovery day pace. You are still way too young to have to make this change …. but at 43 I shifted from 6-8 mile runs at 7:30 pace (6:30 for you), to walk/runs of 7,6,5,4,3,2,1 minutes of 8:00 pace running with 1 minute walking between each. I had to do these runs alone, lest I would feel like a WIMP … but on race day my body wisdom always paid off. I believe you are wise enough and humble enough to implement the necessary changes as time marches on.
GO, ROB 2007, ‘08, ‘09, etc!!
christopher zieman said,
December 4, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Hey Rob,
Shoot me an e-mail…we’ll go for a run. I see your going to XC club nationals in Ohio also. I’ll see you there….
-chris