Three weeks ago I left Stockholm for landing in my Country. So far I've found the perfect weather in my hometown and apparently I left Sweden right before the Summer ran away. I'm going to be back in Stockholm in the middle of the next week, at the end of my vacation. Training motivation is not really high, but I've followed the plan and since I arrived here I drastically increased the amount of kilometers per week, running 160km the first week of holiday and then up to 180km the second. Of course, such a change had some consequences...
The first weekend of my Summer holiday I ran a high quality 10km race near my place (
Giro delle Mura Città di Feltre), where I ended up in the 21st place out of 26 runners (results
here). Far, definitely too far from the leader Stefano La Rosa. I didn't run that bad -my pace was slightly faster than 3.10/km- but I was feeling too heavy and I couldn't do better. I must admit, it doesn't feel so nice when people ask you "why were you so slow?". There is no answer for that, but yet another question: "is it better to be the first of the slower or the last of the faster?". I have no idea what's the answer yet...
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Marcialonga Running 2015 - Last hill |
The week after I ran
Marcialonga Running, a competition following the track of the cross-country skiing competition held in Cavalese in the end of January. Again, I ran even slower than the last year, especially on the last hill, where I couldn't push harder that 4.30/km. Slow, too slow for racing. My legs just couldn't do any better!
Those two races reminded me the normal feeling of the marathon runner. They brought me back in the days, while I was training for other marathons and I couldn't constantly perform the way I wanted. Of course, at that time I was fresher, younger and more trained, but I feel that it is just normal. The best thing to do is probably to take only the positive inputs (if any!) and keep training for
Venice Marathon.
So, yes, I'm definitely too slow for racing. Now. But I need to race in order to train. Thus... Never mind, I will not cry for my bad performances and still feel positive on the long term goal, and if I'm going to be too slow for racing in one month as well, never mind, at least I'll find myself conscious of the fact that I tried to do my best.