Yesterday was the New York City Marathon. I'm lucky enough that I basically live on the marathon route. All I have to do is walk to the corner of my block and I'm standing between miles 6 & 7. I've gone out and watched the marathon a number of times. Yesterday was first time I've made it out early enough to see the both the women and men elite runners. These men and women were running 5 and 6 minute mile pace. They did this for the whole 26 miles. Crazy. I love watching elite level activity. It really doesn't matter the activity either, I just get a kick out of watching people be good at stuff. I've learned something from watching elite performance/performers: they are liars, or at least the performance lies. Elite performance looks effortless. Check out this video of the elite men.
2017 TCS New York City Marathon Men Elite.
You can here me say they are running a 5 minute/mile pace. The winner of the race, Geoffrey Kamworor, finished in 2:10.53. That's almost exactly 5 minutes/mile for the entire race. Again, crazy. These dudes literally look like they are out for a quick Sunday jog but they are running 12mph.
If that doesn't seem that fast to you, go to your local gym and crank a (DON'T BE ON THE TRREADMILL) treadmill up to 12.0. Look at how fast the belt is moving and imagine moving your feet that fast for 2 hours. Hopefully now you understand what I mean when I say the performance lies.
A part of being elite (at anything) is that it looks easy from the outside. Looking at the video you can't tell the amount of training hours put in, the amount of time needed to recover from the training hours, the time preparing the food needed to fuel the training and recovery hours and everything else that goes into being able to run 12mph for over 2 hours.
Because people can't tell what goes into being elite, they often try to imitate the elites. People quickly realize how hard it actually is to be elite. This realization causes people to quit. THIS IS RIGHTFULLY SO. If this weren't the case we wouldn't have elites.
The point here is you aren't elite. That's ok. Stop trying to be elite, unless you're willing to quit you're job and rearrange your life to mimic what the elite do. Let's be honest, you're not willing to do it and even if you did you're still not going to be elite. You'd be starting this journey about 20 years too late.
Now that I've spent two paragraphs playing the role of negative Nancy, let's finish up with on a positive note. I'm not saying don't take any inspiration from elite performance. I actually want you to do the opposite, take all the inspiration. Take that inspiration and fit it into YOUR life.
