Patience is a virtue...

Maybe I should have added that to my goals for 2011! While I was not so calmly waiting to get a hold of a ticketing agent after my flight had been canceled for no apparent reason, I decided to "distract" myself by "banking" blog posts. RW Daily usually provides me with some good material, so on I read. I came across this post talking about an NPR article describing how Americans are becoming more impatient. Remy argued that, by nature, runners are patient because they train for weeks and weeks, without necessarily seeing concrete results, for a single race. He also suggests that runners who are not patient either (1) get injured or (2) burn out. Ok, I agree with him on the later point, but the former?!? I might be the least patient person I know... and I run! It did make me think though... and I now present to you my latest "running theorem":

Patience and race performance at a given distance are inversely related.

In other words, patience gives you an advantage for longer races. Think about it, it kind of makes sense. If you sprint, you need to get out quick... therefore, you need to be "impatient" in the blocks. The only "strategy" involved is run as fast as you can until you cross the finish line... am I there yet?!? For mid-distance, the start is a little less critical, and a little more strategy is involved, and a little patience comes in handy as you wait to make you final move. However, it's still hard for someone from the back of the pack to win a race, so a little impatience is needed on the line. Long distance is an entirely different story, start too quick and you'll be in a lot of pain later, the whole race is an exercise in patience!

Maybe its the fact that I was woken up from a sound sleep at 2:20AM... or that it's now 3:30 and I've been on hold for an hour... or the fact that I'm going completely insane from listening to the same loop of promotions... but I think it's a pretty solid theory! I'll work out the regression equation during my next long run, or treadmill run, or walk to school, or... the "commentary" at the end of the article also cracked me up... just replace "can I run my marathon today?" with "can we warm up now?" and you have just described my pre-race "routine". #20