Ran the usual 7.4 mile loop this morning at 7 min pace with Tim. Legs felt dead from last night's workout but will hopefully kick back into shape before tomorrow's planned fartlek. During the run I put the question out there "How fast do you think you could run if you could do this full time, as your job, just eating, sleeping and living for running?". An interesting discussion ensued with us basically coming round to the same conclusion- that we all pretty much have our place in the running food chain. We all train pretty much as hard as we can given what else is going on in our lives and even if we were able to devote all our time to our hobby, would we really get that much better at it?
What do people think about this? I look at my prs on the right and most of them were set in 2005 when i was running 35-40 miles per week but probably most of them at 6-6.20 pace. Now I'm running 60-70 miles per week, most of which over 7 minute pace. My times have pretty much stayed in the same ball park for the last 5 years. i'm trying to unlock that last bit of potential in me but maybe I'll always be just behind Tim and way behind ex Hanson's guy who rocked up at the race I ran on Saturday. That's my place in the food chain and so be it. Don't get me wrong I'm still striving for prs and improvement, I'm just recognising the fact that hard work can only take me so far and there are so many other variables that need to be in line to be able to move higher up that chain.
1 comment:
I think I've had that discussion with some of my running / biking friends, too. I'm considerably slower than you and Tim (and Gaudette). My 5K PR is 21:50 (a miserably slow jog by your standards). I think I could be significantly faster if I trained full time...but not as fast as you guys. I'm guessing an 18 - 19 minute 5K would be my limit. That's not based on anything scientific...just a guess. It would be an interesting test to lift life's burdens for a year and see what happens.
David
Post a Comment