One week to go, and the Chicago marathon will be upon us! We had a beautiful run this morning on the Prarie Path, and even got our friend Mike Pentz to ride along on his bike and take pictures. So I've posted one of the pictures he took of Rick, Tom and myself (from left to right).
In any case, if you are looking forward to Chicago, congratulations. There's really little left to do but eat, drink, and relax! And speculate.
One of the discussions that kept us going for a couple miles the other day was about Lance Armstrong. As you probably know he's going to run the New York marathon in a few weeks. Distrance runners I know have long speculated about how he would do in a marathon. He's got incredible endurance, strength, and VO2 max as evidenced by the Tour de France titles. But how will that translate to running?
I'm a big Lance fan. I even downloaded some of his workout selections on the Nike/itunes site. Yeah, that's a little geeky, I know. Anyway, you may not realize, but I'm told Lance was originally planning to run Chicago this year. The schedule apparently didn't work out and he changed his plans to run New York instead. I'm sure he's going to draw the bulk of the attention wherever he goes in any marathon he runs. But back to the debate. I believe he is simply different than the rest of us, and regardless of his training, he can run amazingly well, perhaps 2:30-2:45. Tom and Rick are guessing it will be over three hours. According to the Runner's World cover story this month, he's not been training that hard. The experts in the magazine were predicting he will run close to three hours.
But here's the fun part. For beginning marathoners a few years back beating Oprah was the big goal. She ran the 1994 Marine Corps. marathon in 4:29. Faster runners, however haven't really had a famous celebrity to try to beat. That will all change in November though. As soon as Lance crosses the finish line, we'll all be able to have a number to compare! My friend Tom is running New York, and believes he has a chance to beat Lance. I will run Chicago without knowing what time I would have to beat, but it will be fun to see after the fact! If Lance takes it seriously I don't believe either of us will be in the same zip code. But I also don't believe he's going to challenge the leaders either.
In any case, it's great for the sport. Lance Armstrong is an icon, and someone nearly all of us admire. I'm looking forward to his marathon almost as much as mine! Well not quite, but it should be fun!
We'll have lots to talk about this week, so I'll see you soon!
John,
Great job today in the marathon. Your splits were remarkably consistent throughout the race. If I can be that consistent I will really be happy. Was that close to your marathon goal?
Posted by: Justin Breidenstein | October 22, 2006 at 04:02 PM