I posted this on RWOL but thought I'd post it here as well.

One of the best things I ever read about racing was an article in Runners World magazine that said most runners don't run a half marathon all out.  They run it "sort of hard" and then sprint at the end rather than running it "hands on the knees hard."  I think a lot of folks run marathons that way as well.  I'm not talking about the person who is running the marathon just to enjoy the race but someone who wants to run it as fast as possible.

Here's a question.  When do you start to hurt?  Mile 20?  21?  If someone told you they were feeling it by Mile 15 and hurting pretty badly by Mile 17, would you think they have gone out at an insane pace and are heading for a complete blow up?  If you think that's the case, check this piece from the Boston Globe.  Scroll down to the third video.  Just above that video is a caption "Mile 15 - Entering Wellesley.  See what this guy has to say about when he's starting to hurt.

Link to Article

I'll be honest.  I have never started to hurt much by Mile 17.  I'm starting to get a bit uncomfortable by then but I don't really start to hurt until somewhere between Mile 19 and Mile 21.  So, it's fair to wonder whether I could push myself just a bit harder.

This is easily one of the more eye opening things I have seen in a while.

It's a good article/video series.  Many of us don't have the experience to know exactly how hard to push it or the training to sustain a really hard push over 26 miles.  There are a lot of stories of people who blow up by going too fast so playing it safe and having enough energy to finish strong, even if there is some gas left in the tank seems a much smarter move.  Especially since most of us aren't likely to win.  Even the elites who have the training and the motivation to push hard frequently blow up mid-race.

Mile 22 or 23 is where is hurts like hell. By mile 24 it is just sheer will power. Man, I hate that but it sure feels good at the end.

Is it more eye opening that the most conditioned distance runners in the world can push themselves x times harder than middle aged hobby joggers, or that you both start getting fatigued with about 45 mins more of marathon pace to go?

Yes?

 

One of the best things I ever read about racing was an article in Runners World magazine

This sentence alone is pretty hard to believe.

Having only run three of them, I am not really qualified to be an authority on this distance (or any other for that matter) and whether or not I ran it all out.

I can say with 100% certainty however,  that for where I was at the point in time when I raced each of them, I took nothing home with me. Not an ounce of anything.

When I began to hurt during the race, the degree of difficulty in walking in the days after it, how long it took me to resume training, none of that really means anything to me as it pertains to what I gave for 26.2 miles (26.4 last fall).

Now we can talk about race execution and there might be something there, but crumbs on the table? Not a single solitary one was left out there I can assure you.

There is no bright line for me as to where it starts to hurt.  It's more like a gathering storm that I'm watching with intense interest.  I can see it forming as early as mile 6 to 10; I have a sense of how bad the storm will be by mile 15-17;  and by miles 20--22, I'm right in the middle of it trying to survive.

 

The real question is, why do we do these things to ourselves?

i ask myself that very question starting about 1.25 miles into a 5k

This is interesting to me in that we may all process pain very differently, and maybe even approach the concept differently.

Races, IMO, don't create pain, they create varying levels and manifestations of discomfort (and mental distress at times.)  I'll talk about my first marathon first, because it was an epic blowup but was not painful per se, not painful like burning your hand or running your foot over with something heavy or getting kicked where you don't want to get kicked.

At that race, Cleveland, I knew that I was in trouble by mile 14.  It was getting hot and I was unraveling, breathing too hard and feeling that trouble was imminent.  The shit hit the fan around 18, with my body forsaking me, but it didn't hurt.  It was a shutdown.

Boston 2014, I had gone into the race with cranky adductors, and they were threatening to become a problem in the Newton hills.  I could not run the hills as aggressively as I had wanted to, but I managed to work through the danger and finish well.

Fast forward to my last marathon, Jackson, my PR.  The upper teens were tough, but it was a mental battle.  I was playing 2nd fiddle to one runner who had pulled well ahead, I was cold, I was trying to not find an excuse to slow down.  Excuses would have been easy, but physically, other than hands that had become frozen claws, I was fine for the whole race.  Dog tired and working to maintain pace by the last 5 miles, yes.  In pain, no.

No, we're not running marathons all out, none of us from Meb to the 100 year old guy.   All out is maybe a 100 meter race.  What we are doing, what's so intriguing about these things, is that we're trying to not go all out but as fast as possible for X number of miles.