| Marathon Training & Racing from Joe Bowman All 50 States & DC under 3:00 |
| Some people like to train; some people like to race. I love to race...the marathon. It's your reward for all that doggone training. Hard training doesn't guarantee a good race...nothing in the marathon is guaranteed except a miserable experience if you don't train. However, if you've been doing the core workouts and you're hitting most of the marks in the 'are you ready' table, you should be CAPABLE of running a sub3 hour marathon. Now I can't stress how many capable runners I know and talk to that haven't broken 3 hours in the marathon. They just don't put it all together on race day. Sometimes it's things within their control; sometimes it's mother nature; sometimes it just happens. When it doesn't come together, I say lace up and get back out there. It's said there's no substitute for training (I agree), but there's also no substitute for marathon racing. So I have this running buddy Jeff. He says we're runners because we have no hand-eye coordination. That may be true, but it doesn't mean there's no strategy or technique in running. It's not a golf swing, but if you're going to travel 26.2 miles on your hopefully rested legs and feet, it's important to do it as efficiently and effectively as possible. I'm no marathon wonder boy. Ask anybody who knows my running and they'll probably tell you they're as capable as me...AND THEY ARE. And YOU are too. Yet those same people scratch their heads at my sub3 success rate. I have to have a good day to break 3 hours and most of the time I find a way to make it a good day. A lot of that success comes from knowing what I did right or wrong under a similar situation in a previous marathon. You can't read that kind of stuff; you have to experience it. So I say, run a marathon, then another, and another. Trust me, you figure this distance out and you'll never want to run another 10K! |
Here are a few things I've learned while racing...