Review of Race Entries

At the start of the week I was planning on competing in the 1 mile club
championship race taking place this evening. However upon assessing how far
away the venue was from my apartment and figuring out how difficult it
would be to get there I began to review why I was competing in the race and
whether it was really worth it, especially considering it will take me five
times as long to get to the venue than it'll take for me to run the race
itself! So this made me review - why am I running and what do I hope to
achieve?

First and foremost, I am not running to win races, I'm training for a
marathon - 26.2 miles. The bulk of my training is focussing on building up
mileage. Any races I do between now and the big day will be purely for
preparation purposes. I am under no delusions that I'll win any of them,
there's far too many faster, fitter people around. As stepping stones to
running the marathon I would like to compete in a 10k, a half marathon, and
other similar distance events. I'll also work on interval training to
improve my fitness and my speed, as well as some hills work, all of which
will work toward preparing me for the marathon.

Short 1 mile races however wont exactly give me any benefit. They do not
fit into my objectives to run a marathon. They would be ideal if I were
training to do sprinting, or to compete seriously in shorter
distances...but I'm not. So what is the minimum race distance I'm willing
to do? As my first ever race was a 5k I can see benefit in doing future 5k
races for comparison purposes to see how I'm improving since the last one.
I think it is reasonable to set this as my minimum race distance.

There are however a series of races that I DO have a chance of winning.
Both the Serpentine running club and the running club at my work do monthly
"handicap" races. These work by staggering the start times for the runners
based on their previous race results with the idea that everyone finishes
the race en-mass. As you are running against your own previous time, the
first person across the line (and therefore the "winner") is the person who
has improved on their previous time the most. As *fingers crossed* I will
be improving over the course of the next 9 months as I train for the
marathon then these are the races that I stand a chance to win - and it is
my aim to win them! Quite simply - this is an achievable goal which meets
my objectives.

So what did I do this evening instead of competing in the 1 mile race? Well
I chose to use my time more wisely and go for a run in the park - making
the most of the extra time I have to go for a longer run than I typically
would mid-week. I ran from my flat, the full length of the top of Hyde Park
and Kensington Park Gardens and back - a distances of 3.4 miles total which
I did in about 35 mins. I ran quite fast as I wanted to get home before it
started to get dark and I took short breathers to tide me over but all in
all it was a good run.