Gold Medal Confidence

Early one morning in August 2012, I woke up before it was even light out for a Sunday long run.  However, for this particular run, no shoes were required…I was actually a spectator from the comfort of a leather recliner as I watched the men’s 2012 Olympic Marathon.

In the minutes leading up to the start of the race, NBC interviewed several of the athletes including Ryan Hall.  I honestly was pretty gobsmacked or perhaps godsmacked as I watched Ryan Hall going on-and-on about his Christian training and how great he is (And by he I mean Ryan – not the “He.”)  I think the quote that got me was something along the lines of “I am already am awesome.” My first thought was “Who’s this asshole?”

What I didn’t fully grasp as I watched Ryan Hall coming across as an arrogant, brainwashed, religious fanatic was just how much mental strength plays in to a race – especially one that’s 26.2 miles.

In my naïve mind, I thought of a race like taking a test in college – You could feel nervous and unprepared as hell but could end up walking (or rather running in the case of a race) out of it having killed it.

What I now believe to be true is that no runner (or perhaps only very few) can actually win the Olympics if they don’t believe they can win it before getting to that starting line.

And you don’t have to be up for a gold medal to need confidence.  A marathon is a long distance, and if you start out too slow (or too fast) for too many miles, there is no way you will be able to make up those errors later in the marathon.  Thus, if you don’t believe you can run a three-hour marathon for example, you won’t start out at an appropriate pace that you can hold steady to reach that goal.  Instead, most likely, later in the race, you will pick up your pace and finish realizing that if you had gone out a little stronger in the beginning and maintained, you could have run a faster race.  But you didn’t start out faster – Why?  Because you didn’t believe you could run a three-hour marathon.

Of course confidence is like that two-sided coin – the fear is that you will be overly confident and pick unrealistic goals.  It should be noted that Ryan Hall dropped out of the 2012 Olympic Marathon after only running for 10 miles.  He evidently had a hamstring strain entering the race that turned out to not have been completely healed as he had thought.

As my training for the Marine Corps Marathon is down to its final few weeks, my physical preparation is almost complete.  Much like the last few miles of the marathon, there isn’t much you can do to at the end to make up for all the miles already run (or perhaps not run).  Instead, it’s time to make sure I have prepared myself mentally.  In addition to training my brain to stay focused during a hard run and withstand the necessary pain, my mind will also need to be calm and confident.

So while I still think Ryan Hall is a bit of a strange cookie, I do feel a little bad about calling him an asshole (not that he knows).  As with most people who boast about themselves, the person he is really trying to convince of his ability is himself.  And you know what?  I’m trying to do the same thing myself.

MCM Training Week Seventeen:  76 Miles

Needless to say, my Sunday long run after my Saturday brewery hop (see below) could have been better.  It certainly didn’t help that when I jogged down to NoDa Brewery Sunday morning to get my car to make the trip out to the flat, South Charlotte trail, I found that the parking lot had been padlocked closed and wouldn’t reopen until 1:00 pm.  Thus, I was forced to take to the brutal hills of the nearby urban Charlotte neighborhoods.  I was supposed to hold a hard pace (6:50 – 7:00 minutes/mile) for 18 miles of my 20-mile run but after 16 miles I had had enough.  I was not running up one more hill!!  As any bad run can do, it certainly shook my confidence a bit.  Thus, this week I will focus on nailing my long run on Sunday (last true long run of training!!!) to hopefully get my Ryan Hall-confidence back on.

This Week’s Beer Choice: It’s a Brewery Hop!  

On Saturday we hit up some of my neighborhood breweries starting at NoDa Brewery.  I actually had my first Jam Session Pale Ale (it’s hard to pass up a Hop, Drop, N’ Roll) which was tasty!  We also took a tour of the brewery and learned all about the origin of the hops and how they make their delicious beer.  It was super interesting – I felt like I was visiting a foreign country and going to the country’s home brewery (I’ve been to the Heineken and the Guiness Breweries – They were a little bigger.)

After NoDa Brewery, we popped next door to Birdsong and enjoyed the summertime weather on the porch with a Higher Ground IPA.  Life really doesn’t get much better than that.

Lastly, while the sun was setting, we walked a little up North Davidson St. to Heist Brewery.  Set in the old Highland Mill, Heist has character, craft beer, and curiously amazing food.   Just like its Noda neighborhood, nothing is normal at Heist.  Chicken & Waffle Sushi?  They got it.  Everything I’ve had at Heist is amazing, and it was the perfect place to finish our tour with some much-needed grub.

View of Uptown Charlotte as we walked to Heist in NoDa.