Do the Math

How fast do you run your first marathon? This question has been bouncing around in my head for the last 190 miles or so. Yesterday I bumped into an old friend and fellow first time marathoner who has been struggling with the same thing. Some experienced marathoners have taken my half-marathon time ("fast") and projected some pretty intimidating targets. And Jordan pointed me to a VDOT calculator which, based on the amount of oxygen my body consumes during a minute of running, speculated that I could run a 5:30 mile. (More on VDOT here. Although I'm not sure I trust anything that doesn't ask me my age first.) The Team Brookline coach also projected a fast time, reassuring me that "I finished my first marathon in under 3 hrs. Well, actually, it was my third marathon, but the first that I finished."

And see, that's the thing: Shouldn't I plan on finishing my first marathon? It's not like a 5k, where I'll probably finish regardless of how bad I bonk. It seems like it's pretty easy to not finish a marathon, and that would be unfortunate since I don't plan to make this (running a marathon) a regular thing. So just take it slow and be conservative, right? On the other hand, I was joking with Jeff the other day that I think I'm 0-for-12 in sticking with my last dozen pre-race strategies. For my last half, I ran the first mile 45 seconds faster than my target pace. Apparently my legs had zero interest in what my brain had previously decided on this topic. But that was my second half marathon and I'd like to think that my legs had some idea what they were getting themselves into. And to their credit, they pretty good job matching the VDOT targets on the fly. It'll be interesting to see what they decide to do in April. (Meanwhile my brain will be that kid in the front of the class that the teacher refuses to call, but still frantically waving his hand in the air.)

Speaking of setting goals, when I first kicked off my fundraising, a buddy stopped by my office and laughed: "$5k? That shouldn't take long." He was right. Specifically, it took 17 days, 14 hours. But how was I supposed to know that? $5k is still a lot of money, right? Turns out you guys are way more generous than I gave you credit for. Or, more likely, I was intimidated by the idea of raising money, plus I was too lazy to do a little math. Either way, a big thank you to everybody who has donated so far, and it's time to set a new goal. My initial thought was $8k. Seemed like a nice safe number. But screw that. Let's put a real target out there: $10,000. What's the worst that can happen, right? (Yep, still too lazy to do the math.)