very sick feeling!

I just got a very unpleasant feeling. I have looked at the results from the Derby Marathon a few times, but not recently. I mainly looked at them when I was setting up my 2006 schedule back in October of '05. But I just went to do some looking at the course elevation chart, results from last year, etc.

The results made me sick to my stomach. A sub 3:00 race would put me around the 10/11 spot. (Light Headed). My first thought is that I'm not that good. And I'm really not a top 10 runner, not by any means... now I have a mental hurdle to get over.

There could be two reasons for such slow times in the marathon. (3 hours isn't fast by most standards... all things being relative though because it is very fast for my ability.) 1. The course is difficult, limiting the number of people running a quality marathon time. 2. There are not a lot of solid runners that run the marathon.

I don't know which it is, but the winner did run a 2:17. That is a very solid time. And the top 5 runners all are very good times. But from the 6th place to the 7th place seems to drop off quite a bit?

I also know that many of the local runners here do the half-marathon and it has a larger participation. (There were only 562 runners that did the marathon in '05, versus 5,909 that did the half)

Nothing like a little self doubt creeping in to change the perspective. Note to self:

"I have a plan and I believe I can achieve my dreams" repeat.... repeat. "If my body can do the training, if my mind can be set free... the race will take care of itself" repeat.... repeat. breath.