Posted by Monetta Roberts on September 15, 2007 at 23:41:06:
In Reply to: Re: Forget about it... posted by Leif Irgens on September 15, 2007 at 19:34:46:
But just because I'm getting old - that doesn't mean that I'm going to quit doing the stuff I love . . . and I'm most certainly going to try to compare what I'm doing now to what I could do when I was younger in order to continue to try to understand what my capabilities are as I continue to get older.
Make sense?
To quote an old punchline, " I'm a frayed knot."
You had me all the way until you started comparing older you to younger you. It isn't really complicated to understand a person's capabilities on any given day: if he or she gave an honest effort, then was he or she not able to accomplish everthing to capacity? If comparing your workouts or races to your lifetime personal bests for same distances is too depressing for you, why not just go by perceieved effort and be satisfied with whatever your time if you know in your heart that you gave everything given the conditions and given your readiness on the day?
And if that seems like too much the sucker's way out, then take it like a big boy and compare yourself to the world record for that distance and for your particular age. That should supply more that enough of the *hard* data you seek. And if that's too rough, subtract 25%. And if that's too lenient, add back 15%; and continue thusly until you arrive at an arbitrary number you like. Because any formula you use is going to be arbitrary. But you didn't hear that here. * )
Mo