Then something very bad happened -- I bought a GPS watch. What I thought was easily a 9:00 min/mile pace was actually 10+. How did I slow down so much? It was a gradual degradation I never noticed. Hell, I might as well have been power walking.
So, instead of succumbing to the usual "getting old" excuse, I decided to see if I could get faster instead of slower. It worked. I ran my fastest marathon in March (Los Angeles, 3:44), then bettered the time in June (San Diego, 3:31).
I was tempted to call it good, but that damn GPS thing kept hounding me. The only thing I could think of was qualifying for the Boston Marathon, probably the most famous marathon in the US.
Problem: for a 36 year-old male, the qualifying time is 3:15. It wasn't that long ago that the thought of qualifying for Boston was as ridiculous as the Cubs winning 4 games in the 3rd week of October.
I'll spare you the math. 3:15 means I have to average 7:26 min/mile FOR 26.2 MILES. Good freakin' luck!
We'll see. I've got the Air Force Marathon on Sep 20th. If I can keep my hamstring in one piece that day, I'm going to give the whole qualifying thing a shot. I think the Olympics got me overly pumped. It's all M Phelps' fault!
The reason for putting this in the blog is the "put up or shut up" I have to live with now. So, here's the plan:
1. 20 Sep: Air Force Marathon
2. 27 Sep: Noble Canyon 50k (31 miles) Trail Ultra-Marathon (I should skip this and recover, but the race is 15 miles from where I grew up - I can't miss it!)
3. 23 Nov: Santa Monica Mtns 30K (there's a 50K version, too, but I'll refrain)4. 7 Dec: High Desert 50K (a great winter Mojave run)
5. 25 Jan: Carlsbad Marathon (my attempt to run 3:15)
6. 20 Apr: BOSTON, BABY
But no matter what happens with the whole Boston thing, I won't become a Red Sox fan . . .
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