and i really shouldnt be.  My running has been fine lately - small pain in my left knee but I think I need to just roll it out (and get new shoes).

But, a friend of mine who just started running a year ago ran in the Baystate marathon this weekend, and beat my marathon PR by 2 minutes.  I've worked my butt off for about 8 years now running thousands of miles to get my 3:37 last year.  He just starts running and on his second marathon is now faster than me coming in at 3:35 (a 25 minute PR from his first marathon - Boston in April).

Dont get me wrong, I'm happy for him and he put in a lot of work in the last year to get to where he is.  But it's just frustrating because I've been running for so much longer and have so much more time invested and now it seems like I obviously did something wrong for the past 8 years because it took me so much longer to get to the same place he got to in a year.

UGH...  sorry, just venting at myself and not even sure why.  Just not sure why I cant seem to get faster - maybe I'm not mechanically built to run marathons or something.

First of all my very best wishes for you and others streakers.

I´m really very new to this stuff and also to this group (this is my first post) being a Brazilian i´m also not so comfortable with English but  your post really inspired me to send you a reply.

I´ve been "re-sporting" after my childhood for about 6 year know, i´m on my 40´s. I practice cycling, swimming and running, even though i do not participate in triathlons. The point here is that i´m really an awful runner, a not so bad rider and a good swimmer. I could be out of swim training for months and still surpasses a lot of guys that are training hard for years, just jump in the pool an let it go... Maybe its the technique (mechanically built) i´d prefer to believe that i have a gift to swim, since my parents used to be so.

I really would like to be genetic gifted for running, but i´m not.  I´m not even genetic, spiritual, compulsive, obsessed  or whatever you could nominate gifted "to run day after day",  you really are and this is good stuff for me, and i think for the others who belongs to this group. So you must be proud of the "gift" of persistence.

Maybe you also has a passion to be a fast runner, my passion as a good swimmer and not so bad rider is only to be a not so mediocre runner, by entering this group i probably put a bullet targeting this passion. I think your bullets are good targeted too. But do not overlook for others killer shots, sometimes they just born this way: They are natural born killers.

Enjoy the other targets too, being 8 years as a runner is much more "happiness" stuff, its great. Passions (as be fast) are minor stuff.

Namaste.