Today, I completed the Two Rivers Marathon in Lackawaxan PA. And by so doing I stayed on track for my THPL 2014 goal of running a marathon a month. For the regular Blog readers you might be wondering, why did I run the marathon today? Didn’t you just complete 43 miles (during your ultra) two weeks ago? Shouldn’t that count? Well since there are no “real” rules about what you can or shouldn’t count as a marathon I decided, after some research, soliciting feedback and reflecting that since I did not cross the finish line on March 1 in the Old Pueblo 50 that I needed to run a full marathon in March to keep me on track for my goal. And so that is what I did today and as such I now have three “officially” completed marathons in 2014.
It was a small race – maybe about 200 marathon runners. Race conditions were good – 40 degrees, a bit of sun peeking out from time to time and a bit of wind on the course. And with the blast of a horn I was off and running. Today I planned on running hard and seeing how I would do, and, while there was a “bit” of pain involved, it was all good pain and all worth it when I turned in my second fastest marathon time 3:06:44. 9th position overall and first in the 50-59 age group. Two weeks removed from my last race I feel good that I was able to get back out there and put on my “race mindset” and go for it. As I am sure that many of you know – to get a good result requires, focus, focus and more focus. Followed by a good dose of execution it is possible to have a strong race, and I feel good about having done that today.
And so, what do I walk away from all of this with? What I am reminded of is that THPL is all about being “your version” of high performance – in this community, on purpose, we have few rules – just guidance to perform better. That is it – how you choose to achieve that is of your making. Are you willing to raise the bar – to make sure that your standards actually drive a THPL life for you? I was faced with a choice of how I wanted to think about THPL and it led me to today – I made the choice to keep the standard high and then to test myself and my performance. I feel good about it and what THPL does for me.
How about you? Have you had a few choices to make? Where did you end up? The results are important but more important is, are you happy / pleased / satisfied with your choices? I do hope so, but the beauty of THPL is that you can play this “scene” over and over again till you get it to the answer you want. That is indeed what I did today……
Loving Life and THPL!
Ciao
Joe