{"id":199,"date":"2009-08-12T16:14:15","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T23:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/?p=199"},"modified":"2009-08-12T16:14:15","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T23:14:15","slug":"normalized-times-for-the-panama-city-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quesejoda.com\/blog\/normalized-times-for-the-panama-city-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Normalized times for the Panama City Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The
The usual Hernandez-Concepcion winner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The good thing of being married to Yano, is that no matter how bad your race goes, the Hernandez-Concepcion family always brings home the bacon. \u00c2\u00a0No matter how bad you suck, she’s always there to make a personal best, get on the podium, or at least bring home $200 just for trying. \u00c2\u00a0Often, all three.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday Yano and I ran the half-marathon at the Panama City Marathon. \u00c2\u00a0Yanory, aka “Hitler”, has been training me to improve my pathetic time of 1:49. \u00c2\u00a0If pain is in any way related to performance, I’m bound to run 4 minute miles any day. \u00c2\u00a0Because up to a week ago, every thing south of my belly button was hurting, and I do mean everything.<\/p>\n

Before, I publish the results let me explain something about athletes the world over. \u00c2\u00a0With few exceptions, an athlete could’ve always done better, and he\/she’ll take any opportunity to explain why he\/she didn’t. \u00c2\u00a0Endurance athletes are even worse, because they can seldom blame anybody else, so they have to get even more creative.<\/p>\n

The first 24 hours after an event is spent explaining to everyone you know why you didn’t do as well as expected. \u00c2\u00a0Typical excuses include: “I had fried chicken last night”. \u00c2\u00a0“I have this pain in my meta-blastic-tendoniting-ligament-hoobah.” \u00c2\u00a0“My shoe-laces came untied 17 times”. \u00c2\u00a0“I couldn’t sleep my usual 12 hours before an event”. \u00c2\u00a0You get the picture…<\/p>\n

At first, you see these excuses, as just that– excuses. \u00c2\u00a0But after years of training, you start seeing an inkling of truth in them all, and you start coming up with what I call “normalized times”. \u00c2\u00a0These are the race times you could’ve had, had everything gone according to plan.<\/p>\n

So without further ado, here is my race time for the half-marathon… well first, let’s normalize things a bit.<\/p>\n