I like to post an entry the day/night before a race. That way I can come back afterwards and see how I was really feeling, as opposed to writing afterwards how I think I felt before the race. Unfortunately, as I was composing my pre-race entry, I switched programs to verify some data and when I came back the entry was gone. Instead of re-writing the entry, I just skipped it.
I’m not going to write now what I remember feeling as it is no doubt tainted by actual events. I will say that I’d written down being anxious about the race. Not because of the distance, hills, or expected weather, but because of the expectations put on me by myself and coach. I’d switched programs to check exactly what coach had said, which is when I lost my entry. Looking at her last email now, she said I was capable of a big PR. I’m glad I didn’t find that email as it would have stressed me out even more.
Things I did wrong
I did several things wrong in preparing for the race, and they had nothing to do with training. First and foremost I let my diet go in the toilet. It is always harder to eat healthy on the road, but I indulged in fast food, pizza, and other fatty foods. I also forgot my usual pre-race breakfast of oatmeal. At the last minute I had to switch to a Cliff bar, something I’ve never trained with for a run.
I didn’t sleep well that night, if I slept at all. I wasn’t stressing about the race, but just couldn’t fall asleep. I did the best I could to rest.
I got up race morning with an upset stomach. It didn’t bother me too much until after I ate. I hoped it would just go away, and forgot about it to finish getting ready.
Because I couldn’t sleep, I got up early and showed up way to early for the race. While a temperature of mid 60’s is warm for an endurance race, it isn’t warm to stand around in shorts and a t-shirt on a windy day.
The final pre-race mistake I made was in selecting the GU I would use. I’ve been running with a vanilla flavor, but because of the expected heat I thought I would also bring along Roctane for the added sodium. Roctane has a history of not doing well in my stomach. At the last minute I grabbed two of each.
Pre-race
Once I got to the race site I found a warm corner and tried to hunker down until the race started. 20 minutes out I got up and picked a spot that corresponded to my expected finish time. 15 minutes out I took a Roctane, and almost threw it right back up. I think the only thing that saved me was the crowd of people standing around. There wasn’t any way to politely deposit the contents of my stomach!
I needed to pee, but with no porta potties in sight, I had to either hold it or go right there in my pants. Fortunately for the people around me (but not so good for me) I decided to hold it.
I turned on my music, wished the people around me luck, and got ready for the start. The gun sounded, and we just stood there. 20 thousand people were racing and several thousand were in front of me. When we finally started moving, it was only to squeeze in closer to the person in front of us. I chuckled at the person next to me who was running in place with almost no room at all to move. It took me over 3 minutes to get to the starting line.
The race
With all those people in front of me it was very slow going for the first mile. I looked at my watch and we were moving at 10:30 pace. It was infuriating, but there was nothing I could do to go any faster. After about 1/2 mile and a couple of turns we started to spread out some. I couldn’t believe what I saw: power walkers, couples holding hands, and old/fat people in front of me that had clearly lined up in the front of the pack. I spent much of the next mile trying to get around these road blocks.
I hit the first mile in 9 minutes. It was going to take some real work to make that up. Approaching mile 2 I made a dash for a row of porta potties. Trying to save time I didn’t bother locking the door, much to the surprise of the person who came in behind me to use my stall! This probably cost me another 30 seconds, and allowed some of those slow people to get in front of me again. I was furious, and for the next several miles wasted too much mental energy being mad.
The next several miles were uphill, with brief flat spots to catch your breath. I was expecting 3 hills, which were there, but they were followed by many more rolling hills. I didn’t think about the hills that much. I’d trained in the hills and thought I was prepared for them. I leaned forward and tried to keep my pace down. When I finally crested the last of these hills at about mile 6 I was several minutes off pace and pretty winded from all the up hills. I tried to relax going downhill, up my pace just a little bit, and recover from the hills. Funny, but the hills didn’t seem as steep going down as they were going up!
The plan had been for me to consume a GU every 30 minutes. The first GU came in the middle of an up hill and had to be postponed until about 45 minutes (that’s how long it took to crest that hill). Because of the bad reaction I’d had to the Roctane, I opted for my normal GU. It almost came right back up and I had to deal with nausea for the next 1/2 mile. That was the last GU I took this race.
At mile 7 the thought of quitting first crossed my mind. I was pretty hot, hopelessly behind schedule, unable to consume my planned nutrition or drink water, and not having a lot of fun. I quickly threw out the thought and just kept on running. While the thought of dropping out would surface again, it never really got any traction. For the next several aid stations I grabbed cups of water and threw it on my head. That cooled me down and allowed me to keep my head in the race.
I plugged on through rolling hills that always seemed to be more up than down until I made the turn at mile 10. In my mind I was 25 minutes from the finish. “I can run 25 minutes” I told myself, and then the hills came again, only harder. There were two hills in particular that seriously made me think about walking. I looked down at my feel and knew I wasn’t running much faster than I could run. There were lots of people around me walking, it would be so easy to give in to temptation. Instead I leaned forward and kept my feet moving.
There was a turn at about mile 12, that for me signaled the beginning of the end. I made the turn and looked at the first of the two remaining hills. There was no way this hill this late in the race was going to get the better of me. I crested the first hill, saw the second and let out a laugh. After the hills we had already run, this thing was just a speed bump. It was all downhill after that.
Next thing I knew I’d crossed the finish, was getting some water, posing for a picture, and stumbling around trying to get my legs back under me.
The results
I finished the race with 1:46, a minute faster than my last race on a much harder course and worse conditions. My final position was 24/305. It is interesting to me that my chip time was 3+ minutes faster than the clock time, which means it took me 3+ minutes to get to the starting line. Most of the people who finished in front of me had delays of less than a minute. If I do this race next year I will be lining up much closer to the front, regardless of what the signs say.
Now my running season is over. As I sit here today, extremely sore, I know that I gave it my all this weekend, and won some significant mental battles. Hopefully this bodes well for the rest of the season, as my first real race is in just 5 weeks!
