Terry's Running Blog

Yeah Terry what happened to Monday and Tuesday?

The frustrating thing for us average Joe runners is that you can do the slacker training and still place top 5 in AD in most races. Of course we don't know what you could do in a full marathon, I imagine the improper training has to catch up to you at some point as the distance of the race increases. There still may be some hope for average Joe. If we ever run a marathon together and you still beat me on lousy training then I may have to talk you into a 50 miler :)

...or maybe "slacker training" is the key to great running? Hmmm. Although I doubt there are many athletes in the Olympics who took the slacker training approach.

I consider the Provo half a success when I compare my July miles of 139 to Toms miles of 311 and Pauls of 216 and I still win. (Evil laugh - Ha, ha ha ha ha)

Terry, You are such a rebel! But you are a very talented running rebel! Please don't make Tom want to do a 50 miler! :)

I know you are just trash talking for fun (I think). Please accept my reply in that same spirit.

It's hard to measure relative success. One measure of course is absolute performance (easy to measure). Another might be what percentage of one's natural potential was achieved (a measure of effort not talent, really hard to measure). Another might be how much you enjoyed yourself (very subjective, but maybe the most important, could be measured by satisfaction or just plain fun, or some combination or the two). So who is to say who was really most successful at the Provo River 1/2?

Whenever someone naturally more talented than me brags about being better than me (even in fun), I can't resist asking (or at least thinking) something like, "Just what is it that you personally did that made you have longer legs than me?" ;)

Running has always come fairly easy to me. Not so for my buddy Larry. Yet he has been running marathons for 20 years. While I can run faster than he can, I have enormous respect for his endurance and achievement. Who is to say which of us is more successful?

Enough Paulosophizing. That was fun.

Paul, The fact of natural talents is very true. I've been blessed with an above average talent for running, no where near elite status but well above average.

Tom, on the other had has an IQ above mine and his musical talents are way above average. He does stuff on the piano and guitar that I could just never do. So the point is that life is not fair and everyone has different gifts, talents and abilities.

However, for this running blog I've chosen to not compare myself against some of the great runners that are far more gifted than myself but to compare myself to friends that I have a small advantage over.