Well the first things I think are, “Have you run a 10K in less than 50 minutes or a ½ marathon in less than 1:55 minutes.”  These are the minimum benchmarks that indicate you may be able to run a marathon in less than 4:00 hours.  Notice I said may be able, not will be able.  This is because, no matter how well you may have prepared, it may not happen.  There are many reasons why this is so, people who are able to run 50 minutes for a 10K or 1:55 for a half marathon, achieve these results from different genetic inheritances, some inheritances stretch to a full marathon and some don’t.  Even if you have the genetic inheritance that stretches, you still need to have the right day.  The right day is a very individual thing and is only peripherally related to things like the weather.  If will and preparation were the only things that counted, the World’s Record Holder would win his/her event in the Olympics, but history has shown that this so seldom happens that it is wise to bet against the World’s Record Holder.

To the best of my knowledge, no one on earth has a foggy idea how to determine which day will be the best day for you to run a marathon, and if they did, you can safely bet it would be a Tuesday.  No one runs marathons on Tuesday; so just forget it.  But to give you some idea how important the right day can be, let me tell you a story from my past.

In 1971 I tried out for the Inter-Service Military Cross Country Team which was going to compete in the World Military Championships in Italy.  I had been training well, but I did not consider myself to be in top form.  I finished 8th in the trials and therefore qualified as the last alternate.  According to the rules, only the first five runners from any team counted, but you were allowed to enter eight runners in the race, so I got to go on the trip.  I had raced my lifetime best for the 10K in Italy the previous spring, so I had fond memories of this beautiful country.

When I arrived in Italy, I thought to myself, I am only baggage on this team, I may never make another international team, and I may never be in Italy again, so I am going to have a good time.  Now that does not mean I neglected my training, but I did not neglect late nights, great dining or red wine either.  I went out every night and I had a great time.  The fact that I was about to run an international race against some of the best runners in the world, did not cross my mind.  In those days, all of the best African and Russian runners were in the military, so you were almost certain to be competing against them.

On race day I arose at about 10:00 am, the race was scheduled for 2:00 pm.  I went to lunch at 11:00 and feasted on spaghetti marinara with fresh bread and a few large cups of Italian coffee.  In Italy, coffee is made in giant espresso machines and is strong enough to dissolve your spoon, if you leave it too long in the cup.

They transported us in buses to the location of the race.  As I began to warm-up, I noticed how strong and light I felt, and thought, “Gee this is weird, I really feel good today; I wonder why?”  I did not wonder long, because soon we were lining up for the start of the race.  When the gun went off, I started out with no particular plan in mind, after all I was just baggage on this trip, no one expected much from me, and I didn’t expect much from myself.  By one mile in the race, I was running comfortably, and effortlessly, and I felt so good I did not know what was going on.  I picked up the pace and soon I was running among a group of Moroccans.  They were babbling among themselves, but of course I had no idea what they were saying.  I just concentrated on getting over the next obstacle with a minimum of energy loss.  (In international cross-country races you must leap over fallen trees, hay bales, stone walls and a variety of streams and ditches.)  At 7 miles in the race, I was in fourth place running behind three Moroccans. (See Picture at Right) Then Cliff Clarke, a teammate of mine, pulled along side of me.  We exchanged a brief greeting, before the final dash for the line.  The Africans held on to the top three spots, and Cliff out-sprinted me by a stride to get 4th, and I finished 5th in what I consider to be one of the best races of my career.

This was one of the best races of my career, a career that spanned 37 years.  This was a race in which I did not think I was in particularly good shape, where I barely made the traveling team, where I partied every night, where I got up late on race day, (probably due to a hangover) where I ate pasta and drank strong coffee only three hours before the race.  Go figure.

My point in sharing this example is not to convince you that preparation doesn’t count, it does.  My point is, regardless of preparation, great things only happen on special days and you have no way of knowing which day will be a special day.  And my second point, possibly even more important than the first is, great races can and do happen, even when you are not expecting them.

The biggest mistake runners/people make is to think nothing happens unless they will it to happen.  Undoubtedly this is a very satisfying illusion to hold on too; “God, I am important, you know its true, don’t you?”  But it is little more than an illusion.  It would take a book the size of an unabridged dictionary to describe the processes that occur in a single muscle cell that allow you to run the way you do.  When you run, you run just fine, but the truth is, you are clueless to all the intricacies involved.  It is a blessing that these processes are out of our control, because there is no way in hell we could sequence all these processes in the right order and at the right time with our conscious minds.

We need to remember that virtually everything that happens in the world, happens without our conscious control.  Understanding this fact will allow us to relax; we are not responsible for everything that happens in the World anymore.

This leaves us with the question, “Just what is the athlete's role in training and racing?”  I think the best answer to this question is found in my grandfather’s rose garden.  My grandfather loved roses and in his life produced many exceptional blooms.  I once asked my grandfather what was the secret of his success in raising roses.  He said, “Roses are peculiar flowers, there does not seem to be any way to predict which plants will produce the finest blooms or even which blooms on a particular bush will be the most spectacular.  My strategy has been to cultivate, weed and water each plant as though it was my best and then wait to see what nature brings forth.  I have found, to my surprise, that some plants, I had little confidence in, produced the finest blooms.  I think that the most you can do is, care for each plant to the best of your ability, and then let nature take its course.  I think I have had a lot of success with that.”

To me this is a perfect analogy, if you think of the care of the plants as training and the bloom of the roses as races.  Obviously, if you don’t water the plant, you won’t have roses, and just as obviously, if you don’t train, you won’t be successful in the race.  But if you water, weed, and fertilize your rose bush, you may be certain to have roses, but how can you be certain of the quality of every bloom?  You can’t, it is out of your control.  Flowers bloom as they are going to bloom, all you can ensure is that they have the opportunity to bloom.

It is no different with races; you can train perfectly and have a less than perfect day.  The race will not be what you had hoped for.  You may think your preparation was less than you would have liked, but your race can still turn out to be more than you had expected.  It all depends on the day, i.e. things you have no control over.  The best you can hope to accomplish with roses is to care for each one as though it were your best.  The best you can do with races is prepare for each one, as though it could be the race of your life.  Once the preparation is completed, it is time to get out of the way and see what develops.  Just like you can’t force a rose to bloom according to your desires, you can’t force a race to produce the results you want.

However, if a rose is going to be truly special, all you need to do is get out of the way and let it bloom.  If a race is going to be truly special, all you need to do is get out of the way and let it happen.

All the will in the world won’t make a rose bloom in a certain way, and all the will in the world won’t make a race develop the way you want it to develop.  The best thing you can do on race day is to let go of your preconceived notions of how fast you should run and open your mind to the concept of how fast can I run today?  The way you do this is, get in tune with your body, find a rhythm and a maximum pace that seems comfortable (regardless of the time on your watch) and then attempt to continue to run that pace until you finish.  If it is indeed your day, and you have chosen your pace well, you should be rewarded with a new personal record.  If not, there is another race next week.