May 24, 2011

Marathon WR and Job Searchs

Last week I had my first speed session in... I don't remember how long, and as I have a very good memory, that's a sure sign this means it was way too long ago.


I got this sudden urge to do something intense which would get me out of breath and with my thights burning, something I don't do often these days, mostly it is all too tempting to go and hit the trails instead. (Pause... actually, bad example : trails do get me out of breath with my tights burning). But this time, speed work seemed like a good option : I only had 50 minutes to spare, and a very crowded mind which needed to focus on just keeping oxygenated to avoid thinking of hundreds of potentially not so pleasant other things.


So here I went, in our local forest, which has 2 distincts advantages, namely shade (important when training, as one does, at 11am in true summer heat) and a flat, half-tarmac half-dust, straight lane. Incidentally, it also had an in-residence flasher it seems, but I was never lucky enough to experience it for myself, I'll stick to only two advantages.

Considering that, see above, this is the first speed session in a very, very long time, it went well (maybe probably surely a sign that I have not pushed hard enough). I was sprinting at 20.8km/hr in the third repeat, and was pretty pleased with that (if only because I had nothing to compare it with).

But as I was running back home, I realised : this was only roughly 0.30kms/hr faster than the average speed at which Haile Gebrselassie  ran the entire Berlin Marathon when he broke the world record in 2008. And then, he did look pretty smooth, and he definitely did not look like he was sprinting.

Then, as I was running back home, I made a note to myself : as I am currently in between jobs and considering which option to pursue next, there is at least one job I clearly should NOT consider, and it is that of men's marathon record holder*.




Martin, who most of the time reads my posts before they get, precisely, posted - which means that, technically, he does not read my posts, but I am as usual disgressing – comments that this one is neither funny nor very interesting.

He's right.

Still. If you think about it, it is crazy that guy is running a marathon at my 200m-repeat pace.

3 comments:

mmmonyka said...

And most people would not be able to keep up with him on bike either...

Mapp said...

zell, it is just as well I am not considering a career in cycling either, then! Just out of curiosity: is he cycling as part of his training? I could not find anything on that...

cherelli said...

But, with a few star appearances by the random trail flasher you could surely look at becoming the womens marathon record holder???? :)