And just to furthur illustrate my point, the following link is the race report of pro triathlete Terenzo Bozzonne.  He got off the bike with Andy Potts at the Wildflower 70.3 course this weekend and ran with him all the way to mile 4.   Potts won the race B****errenzo ended up coming in 8th.   Heh.  I came in 1724th.  :)

http://blog.fastertomorrow.com/blog/terenzos-take-on/0/0/try ing-times-at-the-wildflower-triathlon

"We soon got off the bike and headed out onto the 21km hilly run. Potts and I were running shoulder to shoulder. I wasn’t feeling great, so after a mile I backed off the pace and thought he would come back to me. I was finding my rhythm and my legs were starting to feel okay until I hit the hill at mile 4 and had to slow to a walk. I think a drink bottle that I lost at the start of the bike was a bigger problem than I originally thought. It had all my calories in it. "

Terrenzo WON the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in 2008, he's won at Wildflower in the past and he's won numerous 140.6 Ironman races as well.    This dude, a stellar athlete and a world champion triathlete walked part of the course.   Ya know I REALLY don't feel so bad now for walking a good bit of that course.  

He also prolly got to see a boob or two at the naked aid station as well.   By the time I got there the rangers had run them all off.   I didn't even get to see any hot ladies in bikinis.   They had some dude there with a hose spraying people down with water but that was about it.   :)

Everyone here is successful, walk, run or crawl.  I appreciate every bit of feedback and support I get from everyone here.  Unfortunately I'm Mr. competative, and competition drives me.  On the downside, I'm never satisfied with my performance.



Even pros have a hard time.  But Terenzo considers it a bad day.
"I guess in this line of work—just like in any line of work—you have good days and you have bad days. This past weekend at the Wildflower Half Ironman in California, I had one of those bad days at the office."

For him 8th place was a bad day.

For me, I have several different layers of judging my performance
Didn't finish
Finished but failed myself and my goals.
Then the levels of success
Didn't drown
Didn't have to walk my bike up a hill
Didn't have to walk any of the run course
Didn't finish dead last
Finished somewhere in the middle of my bracket
Finished in the top 1/2 of my bracket
Medaled
Won

So unles I am winning all the time (haa!) there is room for improvement.  Hell even with winning, there are always records.  Competition is how I motivate myself.

I know it can happen, I have already walked more than my share of small events.
But damn it I signed up to run it, at least with the short distance races.
I bet I'll be glad I survive the first long distance event I run, but I know that won't be good enough for me.  I'll end up being pissed that I didn't run, I'll be mad that I could have placed 3 place higher if I had just not walked for 5 minutes, etc. etc.

I spent the couple hours after my last triathlon trying to figure out how I could shave time and being disappointed that I didn't place.  My time would have been good enough for 3rd place in last years race.  This year it was 5th place.

I'm thrilled that I completed the race without stopping or walking.  That was my primary goal and I did it, but I'm never satisfied.  I always see it as I could have done better.  I bet that if I were to win at Kona, I'd of been pissed that I didn't break the world record for my age group, or I'd be looking to see what I had to do to have beaten some of the pros.  It's just how I'm wired.

I appreciate that I will end up walking, but I won't consider it a total success until I can run the entire thing.  I'm sure I will have several 1/2 marathons under my belt before I can say I ran a 1/2 marathon, not completed (I didn't say just completed, because just isn't accurate.  completing it under any cir****tances is great.  Completing it under the alloted time is better.)  I'm not doing the event to complete it.  I'm doing it to run it.

Scott

 i think the adversion to walking is because of our past.  We could not run a 1/4 mile without walking.  The goal at the beginning was to run a little further than i did yesterday.  But at some point it will switch from how far i can run to how fast can i run.  And i know for me a minute walking break yields a faster run over an hour.  Ask yourself if you are jogging slower than you can walk are you running?  I think you might as well walk a minute and then get back up to speed.


Jason

"for me a minute walking break yields a faster run over an hour. "

You aren't the only one. People who run/walk beat me all the time.

for me stopping the run and then walking, is almost the worst thing.  I have the hardest time getting going again.  It's like my muscles stiffen up and getting into a run cadence again is very hard.

Scott