Runtime Error

Yesterday, as a herd of Jman, Craigus and I charged through the Newlands forest, a typical Paddlesnappers shortcoming occured, and one we must be most wary of.

It's called "The underestimation".
At the outset, I indicated I'd like a forward runtime of under 40 mins for the course.
Craigus and I particuarly pushed the first section of the run, especially the uphills. Recall that the runs are broken up into 4 parts, with 1x15 pushups at the end of the first 3 parts each as a break from running, but a strain on the arms.
Anyway. We pushed the first 3 sections quite hard, and made some good time.
We did our push ups slowly down and explosive up, taking care to do them properly.

All we had to do was have an average run in to home (back the the old Zoo parking lot) and we'd have a sub 40 minute forward run. Typically we are motoring the last section, so by average I mean usual level of motoring.

Alas. We lost concentration and started talking about a particularly annoying Ethics question of the CFA II exam, which was a great conversation, but ultimately meant we left the push for the end too late. We came in in 40 mins 20 secs. We easily had enough energy left to have pushed harder over a longer period. The results show that we failed, however.

The Lesson here is to keep focus and keep pushing. If you want to achieve a goal, it is not enough simply to prepare or exert yourself into a position of dominance and then relax, you have to keep pushing all the way to the last stroke.

In this case, it's not that serious - we can achieve our goal next time. But what happens when we think we have something done and dusted in an important final, and lose focus?

I urge you to think about this lesson, and learn from this basic training mistake.