Perfect Practice

It’s only a couple days out from the 2012 Olympic Trials Marathon and I can safely say that 2011 was the year of the marathon for me.  As I’ve been perusing the many blogs and articles on this coming weekend, I’ve seen the word “perfect” bounced around quite a bit.  Usually it’s pertaining to the “perfect race” or the “perfect weather,” but whether it be the 800 or the marathon, getting to that perfect race requires countless hours of preparation.  The catch: that preparation has to count.  

The following sums it up nicely:

“Practice does not make perfect.  Only perfect practice makes perfect.” 

~Vince Lombardi

Oh, how true this is.  Everyone knows how easy it is to develop those bad habits...and how hard it is to break them.  This is where the perfect practice comes in.  If you continually practice those bad habits, chances are greater your perfect race will elude you.

A view I pass almost every day on my
second run.

Back to marathon training.  That’s why we practice taking fluids and fueling every few miles on long tempo runs when you’re tired and hurting, to perfect grabbing and carrying your bottle and most importantly taking those fluids in.  There are so many variables over 26.2 miles.  Our goal is to minimize those variables by perfecting training.

Stephanie and I during a 15 mile tempo
on Lake Mary Road.

Post-15 mile tempo.

The list goes on for everything we can work on perfecting in practice.  I wouldn’t be surprised if for most of us, the perfect practice pertains not to the physical act, but to our mental outlook each day.  I’ve watched those around me have good workouts, but they didn’t perfectly practice believing every day that come race day, they were going to succeed.  Many will be distinguished by this come Saturday, January 14th 2012.

Super Bee has been tapering, too.