Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Old Man Summertime Challenge

As an old guy you have to find ways to motivate yourself beyond PR's. All of my PR's at 10k and below are now over 10 years old. I could start running ultras - or I could find some kind of simple mathematical formula to find new goals for these distances.

Since running from sunrise to sunset isn't my idea of a good time (for the joys of ultra marathoning see Alyssa's blog) I found a way to challenge myself with some realistic goals at distances that I haven't raced for a long time.

I came up with an idea after running an all-out 400m tonight for the first time in almost 15 years. Somehow I managed to break 60 - which is ~5 sec off my PR (sadly enough). So I thought, what if I gave myself a 5 sec grace period per 400m for all my PR's under 10k? I did the math - and while challenging, I think I can do it.

I might save the 5k and 10k for next spring - but, I'd like to do this for at least the 800m, mile and 2 mile this summer. My goals would be 2:08, 4:35, and 9:36 (based off of 3k PR) respectively.

Next Tuesday - the 800.

2 comments:

///MM said...

Dude- age grading. It accounts for oldness. Except until age 35 I think you don't get any breaks.

RM said...

Isn't Ben already over 35??