There's a FedEx drive who comes here to work to pickup regularly that has a higher opinion of me than he ought. I've even told him that, but he disagrees with me. This is not a case of me being humble; the driver said to me about a month ago (during the Tour de France), "You'd beat 20 or 30 of the riders in the Tour, I'm sure." Not a chance. He wondered once that I could ride my bike from here to Los Angeles in a day. Now, I'm all for a good century ride, with training i'd be up for a little longer, but it 400 miles to LA. It takes a day to drive there. Try as I might, I would not be biking that in one day.
Yesterday we were talking about running, and my training program preparing for a half marathon. He asks me, "So when you do a long run like, 8 miles or whatever, are you tired when you're finished?" I thought his question was strangely appropriate, since the very night before, at right about 4 1/2 miles into an 8 mile run, I had pondered over that very question.
Of course you're tired. I mean, your heartrate is more than doubled, and your muscles are burning something like 10 times their average expendature. Heck, I'm tired at the one mile mark. But that's not really the point, is it? I saw a run-related internet meme a couple weeks back--you can backtrack to find it on my facebook if you must--that read, "I don't stop when I'm tired. I stop when I'm finished." That's the what the point is really about. Yeah, you're tired, and face it - you're going to be tired until you cross that finish line. You just deal with it, and then when you're finished you enjoy it.
Was that post really about running?
