Whew, finally getting this one out into the world!
The deets:
Brazen Racing is well known in the Bay Area for fun, inclusive, reasonably affordable, and extremely well-organized events, with the vast majority including a 5K, 10K, and half marathon. Most of them are trail races (including some real doozies!), but they host a few flat, paved events as well (including Hellyer in the South Bay and the Bay Breeze/Summer Breeze races at the San Leandro Marina). It is always a really fun and supportive crew, and their races are known for such perks as big beautiful medals (including age group winner medals), cool shirts that you'd actually consider wearing *not* only for running, free photos taken by volunteers stationed on the course, and an epic post-race spread.
Why did I sign up for this race?
I didn't have anything on my spring race calendar until the USATF Masters 10 Mile National Championships on April 2nd, and I wanted to run *something* in the 10K-to-half-marathon ballpark between New Years and then just to see where I was fitness-wise. My criteria were a) late Feb/early March, b) 10K, half, or something in between, c) mostly flat-ish course, d) reliable organization, e) fairly close to home, & f) not too pricey. That's a lot to ask for in one race! So I actually felt very lucky that I was able to find even ONE race that checked all the boxes.
Victory starts and finishes at Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, just over the bridge and a bit down the freeway, about 30 minutes from me. It's a really pretty area of Richmond with some gorgeous waterfront views (a lot of which you get to see on the course). All three courses are mostly out-and-backs and pretty close to totally flat. I have run the 10K at Victory twice before (2017 and 2020) so I felt very comfortable with the logistics (getting there, parking, the course, etc.).
Brazen has always put on some of the highest-value "low-stakes" races in the Bay Area--if you just wanted to run and have fun and see what you could do, it's always been hard to do better in terms of price and what you get for it. Alas, inflation has of course come for us all of late, including race directors. So prices have gone up a bit. But prices have gone up everywhere, so Brazen is still a QPR winner any way you slice it.
This year's prices for the 5K/10K/Half:
- Until 12/18/22: $58 / $67 / $83
- Before 1/22/23: $63 / $72 / $88
- After 1/22/23: $68 / $77 / $93
- Race day: $73 / $82 / $98
And then what happened?
Around mid-February, I just started to feel like wasn't recovering as well as I should be, even though I wasn't running all that much mileage. I was just tired.
Also, the weekend before the race, I'd planned to fly to Texas for a few days to see my family since I hadn't gone for the holidays. I thought it would be a good time because I'd be resting up for the race and wouldn't need to do a workout or long run while I was there, though I still planned on doing some short easy runs.
However, the week leading up to that long weekend trip ended up being pretty trying--you can read the details in this post, but the tl;dr is that due to a work meeting I couldn't miss or reschedule, I had to reshuffle my strength work and speed work and whatever around in sub-optimal ways, and the way it played out, I think I just got myself into a bit of a recovery hole and struggled to get out of it. Once I got to Texas, the exhaustion completely overtook me and all I wanted to do was sleep and rest and hang out with my family. As I wrote in that last training log, I could have fought it, but it just really felt like my body was telling me what it needed and with just a little over a week to go until the race, I was worried about digging myself into an even deeper hole.
I had one more big workout to do before the race which I normally would have done on the Sunday, but since it was President's Day weekend and I had Monday off and my flight back to SF was early, I'd planned to do it Monday when I got home.
Alas, I didn't sleep that Sunday night at all and only managed a tiny bit of napping on the plane. I tried napping Monday morning and completely failed, and so ended doing that last workout--14 miles with 3 x 1.5 miles @ HM pace / 0.5 mile jog--on three hours of sleep. It was VERY hard--much harder than it should have been--and halfway through the workout I started to have some pain in the outside of my right ankle that got worse and worse.
I really struggled to jog home after the intervals and started to really worry I'd overdone it, and when I had to cut my easy 8 miles short on Tuesday due to the pain in my ankle, I knew I was right. I skipped Wednesday's run but felt okay during my Friday shakeout run & just crossed my fingers I'd be okay for the race.
Race Day:
I did everything right leading up to the race--lots of rest on Friday, no alcohol, plenty of carbs, in bed early; I slept well and woke up feeling good and ready to run, had my usual breakfast & plenty of water. I felt surprisingly good warming up with no ankle pain and thought "Cool, maybe this will go okay!"
My only pacing plan was to go by feel and try to settle into a slightly-but-not-too-conservative level of effort early on, and let the race come to me. For the first two miles or so, things went right to plan; I was seeing 7:45-7:50ish pace on my watch, which felt completely comfortable and like something I could definitely sustain for 13 miles. My hope was to keep it there until 8-9 miles, then see if I could pick it up just a little, and run hard for the last 2-3 miles.
And then, around the end of mile three, this kind of bone-deep fatigue seemed to come out of nowhere. It wasn't the lactic burning of going out too fast or suddenly realizing "Oof, this pace was too aggressive." Not at all. This was more like the sleepiness you feel in the middle of the day after a meal or the morning after staying out late when you're just....tired, like you just want to lay down and take a nap. Suddenly I had no motivation and no drive for this race and the thought of running at all, at any pace, for another hour+ was just like
With the same level of effort my pace just started to drop and drop and drop, until I was struggling to hold on to ~8:00-8:10 pace. It wasn't like I was hurting, so I kept being like, "Come on! Pick it up! You can do this!" But my legs just wouldn't go. All I wanted to do was lay down and go to sleep.
The course was mostly out-and-back and mostly flat, but there was a little dirt uphill to the turnaround point that I felt sure was going to break me. In the moment was like, "Welp, that's it. That's all from me folks. I am d-o-n-e DONE here." I can't tell you how much mental effort it took not to walk at that point. (At one point in mile 9 I actually did walk for a bit because I could not get my gel out of my back zipper pocket to save my life. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to put them in the little mesh pockets on the front of my shorts instead 🤦🏻♀️.)
In the last three miles I kept flashing back to Oakland Half in March 2022 and how I'd felt like a superhero, running 7:15 and 7:23 and 7:23 and even crushing the last .14 at 6:43 pace and how I'd really hoped I'd be able to pull off something similar here, but no. It was very much a finish-at-any-pace-possible situation and those last miles were a full minute slower than the Oakland race.
As I approached the finish line the clock said 1:44-something but I was 99% certain the first/last "mile" had been more like 0.9 miles; sure enough, my watch showed 12.9 miles instead of 13.1 (which I didn't really care about, the point of this race was just to get a sense of how my training was going). My official time was 1:44:45, which, at 8:07 pace, translates to about 1:46:20 for a full 13.1 miles. (Strava entry here.)
As terrible as I felt in the end of that race, I felt completely fine within a minute or two, like I hadn't even raced, which is something I've experienced in the past in races where I've felt like I haven't been fit enough to even ask all that much of my body even though it feels in the moment like I'm working hard. In contrast, in my very fastest races where I've felt very fit, I've often felt like I've been in a car wreck with a hangover for hours afterward.
Post-Mortem
I was disappointed in my performance in this race because I'd really felt like my workouts--especially my long run workout two weeks before the race--had been indicating that I was making good progress and capable of something in at least the low 1:40s. On the other hand, I think that when I look back over the two weeks before the race, I can see where things were sub-optimal in terms of being able to perform at my best. I think I just got myself into a hole of exhaustion and not recovering, and though I got a lot of rest in Texas, traveling always comes with its own stress on the body and mind.
Finally, I think that last hard workout just five days before the race on basically no sleep just buried me, and the stress of worrying about my ankle only added to it -- I've definitely learned over the years that mental stress ABSOLUTELY has an impact on my physical body that can interfere with physical performance.
And, that's about all I can say with any certainty. And hey, I did walk away with a second place age group finish!
What's Next?
SacTown 10 Miles this coming weekend! Remember that ankle thing that was totally fine during the half? Well, it super flared up afterward and I've spent most of the days since then either not running, trying to run and failing, or doing 4-6 mile easy runs once my ankle allowed. I think I'm now on the upswing and was able to do one short-ish workout last Saturday (which went well!) but I no longer feel like beating my time from last year is realistic. I'll just be very happy to get a double digit run under my belt and if I can throw in some fast miles without pain, we'll call that a win.
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