Driven

I want to follow up my Boston recap a bit to explain where I am at. I want to emphasize that I feel I ran a great race for my current fitness level and for how I felt on race day. I can't lie and say that I felt stellar on race day though, because I didn't, and my last post is my best attempt to convey how I felt. I am thrilled that I can run a 3:16:30 on a day when my legs weren't feeling it. This is a huge step in the right direction. It's these races that make you realize that when your fitness does come together and the taper works properly and you arrive on race morning with fresh legs and high energy a big break through is inevitable.

I have some aggressive goals for my marathon career. Since I started running marathons in 2004 I have dropped 23 minutes off my time, or almost a minute per mile. That is huge and if you had told me in 2004 I would eventually run a 3:16 at Boston I would have probably laughed at you. But as an athlete and a competitor with each new goal I attain I am driven to push further. My desire to attain faster times never fades. If I wasn't driven to get better I wouldn't have gotten to the point that I could run how I did last Monday on a day when I wasn't really feeling it. So while 3:16:30 is a fantastic time that I am proud of, I wouldn't be true to myself if I thought that was good enough for me. Now I know I can run 3:16. I want to see how much better I can do in the future.

So I guess my point is that a little disappointment isn't a bad thing. It's those little disappointments that can drive us to come back next time and work even harder. Each marathon is a lesson learned and fuel in the fire to train more consistently and to work harder to nail the next performance.