The Starting Line
Last year, I finished UTNP 9 Peaks(122km with almost 10,000 meters of vert) and then, got a bib in the mail, I forgot I also registered for a half marathon three weeks later.
I didn’t really have a plan, just a dream to run under 1:30.
I had one good workout.
Five days before the race, I ran 3 × 2K:
4:38.
4:26.
4:19.
Then I ran 1:29:50.
Looking back, that race bothers me a little.
Not because I ran 1:29.
Because I didn’t understand why I was able to do it.
I knew I was fit.
I didn’t know how fit.
I didn’t know what mattered.
I didn’t know which signals to trust.
I didn’t know how much of endurance running was fitness and how much was simply not getting in your own way.
This year I’m trying to understand it.
That is one reason I’ve started using ChatGPT differently.
Not as someone to tell me I’m going to accomplish my goals.
I don’t need that.
I want something that will look at the numbers, look at the training, challenge my assumptions, and tell me when I’m doing something stupid.
Because I have a tendency to want to do more.
More kilometers.
Harder workouts.
Another test.
Another mountain.
Another number.
And sometimes the hardest thing to accept is that more isn’t necessarily the answer.
The Path
October is going to be a strange month.
October 2: TransJeju 60K.
October 17: Gyeongju Marathon.
Gyeongju International Marathon
October 30: 9 Peaks 122K.
Three races.
Three different problems.
And they are close enough together that I can’t treat each one as an independent race.
Whatever I spend in TransJeju comes with me to Gyeongju.
Whatever I spend in Gyeongju comes with me to 9 Peaks.
So September has become less about building fitness and more about figuring out how to manage the fitness I already have.
That sounds simple.
It isn’t.
The Engine
My VO₂ max is around 53.(garmin)
I could spend the next month trying to make that 54.
Maybe I could.
But what would that actually solve?
Would one extra point make 4:14/km easier?
Maybe.
But I don’t think that is the limiting factor anymore.
I’ve run the kilometers.(I don’t average 100km weeks)
I’ve done the threshold work.
I’ve run 4 × 4.
I’ve run 3 × 2K.
I’ve spent hours in the mountains.
I’ve run a marathon in 3:18.(March 2026)
I’ve run a half marathon in 1:29.(November 2025)
The question isn’t whether I have an engine.
The question is whether I know how to drive it.
That became pretty obvious in September.
My 4 × 4 session started with:
3:55.
3:55.
4:00.
And then:
4:22.
I could go fast.
That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was what happened when the accumulated effort caught up with me. It is also a problem of focus and lack of cadence work.
A few days later, I ran 3 × 2K:
4:13.
4:14.
4:10.
That was more interesting.
Not because it was faster.
Because it was controlled.
It looked more like the athlete I need to be in October.
The Test
Then I tried to hold marathon pace for 30 minutes.
The target was 4:14/km.
I didn’t hit it.
The seven kilometers were:
4:22
4:23
4:22
4:19
4:23
4:17
4:14
Average: 4:20/km.
There are a few ways I could interpret that.
I could say I’m not ready.
I could say I need more speed.
I could add another workout.
I could run more kilometers.
Or I could actually look at what happened.
The pace wasn’t automatic.
On an incline, I would slow down.
Sometimes significantly.
When my attention drifted, I’d look down and see 4:35 or 4:40.
Then I’d correct it.
Pace. Cadence. Pace. Cadence.
That became the workout.
Not just running 4:14.
Learning what it feels like to stay there.
And that distinction is important.
Because I think I’ve spent a lot of my running life thinking about the edge as the place where I can push myself hardest.
I’m starting to think the edge is something else.
The edge is the highest level of effort I can sustain without crossing into waste.
And that is much harder to find.
The Mind
Something else happened before my 30 minute 4:14 km workout attempt.
I started thinking about my ankle.
Then my knee.
Nothing dramatic.
Just normal sensations that I probably wouldn’t have noticed during an easy run.
But this wasn’t an easy run.
There was a number I was trying to hold.
There was a goal attached to it.
So suddenly the sensation had a story.
Is that my ankle?
Is that my knee?
Can I hold the pace today?
What if something is wrong?
That made me realize something about difficult running.
The body is always giving you information.
The problem is that the brain doesn’t always stop at the information.
It starts writing a story.
A sensation becomes a concern.
The concern becomes doubt.
The doubt starts changing behavior.
And suddenly you’re no longer responding to the body.
You’re responding to the story you’ve created about the body.
I don’t want to ignore those signals.
That would be stupid.
But I also don’t want every sensation to become a decision.
There is a difference between noticing something and surrendering to it.
Notice.
Interpret.
Decide.
That’s becoming part of my training too.
The Edge
This might actually be the biggest thing I’m trying to learn this year.
Finding the edge.
Not the fastest pace I can run.
Not the most kilometers I can survive.
Not the hardest workout I can finish.
The edge where I’m working hard enough to accomplish what I came here to do, but not so hard that I’m borrowing energy from the future.
Because October has a thin margin for error.
If I go too hard early in TransJeju, I pay for it later.
If I attack every climb, I pay for it on the descent.
If I destroy my quads downhill, the problem doesn’t show up immediately. It shows up hours later.
If I don’t fuel properly, eventually there is nothing left to manage.
And if I run the Gyeongju Marathon at 4:05 because I feel good through 10K, I haven’t proven anything.
I’ve just spent something I may need later.
That’s the part of this that requires discipline.
Not discipline to do more.
Discipline to stay where I need to be.
The Finish Line
I don’t think I need a higher VO₂ max.
I don’t think I need another giant mileage week.
I don’t need to compare my training to somebody else’s.
I don’t need to prove that I belong in these races.
I’ve done the work.
That doesn’t mean the goals are guaranteed.
It means I have enough fitness to give myself a real opportunity.
Now I have to stop looking for fitness to solve problems that fitness won’t solve.
The remaining work is different.
Discipline.
Knowing when to push and when not to.
Mechanics.
Keeping the body efficient when fatigue starts changing how I move.
Fueling.
Making sure the engine actually has something to burn.
And underneath all of it:
being enough.
That might be the hardest one.
Because there is always another workout I could do.
Another kilometer I could add.
Another person I could compare myself to.
Another number I could chase.
More is easy.
Trusting enough is harder.
October isn’t asking me to become a completely different athlete.
It is asking me to take the athlete I’ve already built and waste as little of him as possible.
Find the edge.
Stay there.
Don’t cross it because my ego wants to.
Don’t retreat from it because my mind gets uncomfortable.
Don’t waste energy proving something that doesn’t need to be proven.
Pace.
Patience.
Mechanics.
Fuel.
Then do it again.
And again.
Until the race is over.
That’s the work now.
One Way Grit.
-A little to self from ChatGPT mixology.
One Way Grit 