I wanted to run one more race before Eugene, ideally something longer than 10K (so I could treat it as kind of a Eugene dress rehearsal/long tempo) but less than another half marathon (because I didn't want to risk getting over-excited and blowing Eugene by all-out racing two weeks before).
One of the main reasons I wanted to do this was because back when I ran NorCal Redding 10-miler in March, I did not run a good race tactically. I knew I'd had a rough week and was not fully recovered and epically misjudged my initial effort level, and when that happened and I suddenly started to feel really really bad, I sort of had a little mini-panic attack. I spent the whole race really unhappy and desperate to quit and also watching my pace creep up and up and up no matter what I tried to do. It got a little better in the last two miles but I *really* wanted another chance to practice the mental & strategic side of things, and bonus if it was a day when circumstances are not 100% perfect (as is usually the case, if we're honest).
Originally I was going to do this 10-miler in Brooklyn on Sunday since my talk was scheduled for Saturday, but then just a few days before the talk got moved to Sunday and there was absolutely no way I was going to make it back in time. So, I poked around a bit and found this little community race about two hours from Philly put on by this group offering a 1-mile, 5K, 10K, 15K, and half marathon (!) and signed up for the 15K (which is ~9.3 of The King's miles for those keeping score at home).
And then what happened?
What happened is that I booked a rental car to pick up on Friday evening, which also meant I also had the privilege of paying to park it at the conference hotel. Oy. (For all that this was a $50 race, transportation costs really added up. 😳😬💸) (Also shake your cane if you remember when local community races cost a cool $7. 👵🏻🧓🏻) (I kid, I kid.) (But only kind of.)
Race day:
Long story short, I woke up at 4:20am (🤢🤮) to howling wind and the pouring rain that we'd been threatened with in Philly since Thursday, so the first part of the drive in the dark in an unfamiliar car on unfamiliar freeways was **super fun**! Not. I stopped in a small town about halfway for a bagel and a coffee, then about an hour later arrived at the race venue, where according to my phone it was 39º with 18-20mph wind 🤣.
(Seriously, I am just cursed like this. At least the rain had stopped by then!)
I had planned to arrive around 7:00am & get as much of my 14 miles for the day done pre-race so I could leave as soon as possible after, but thanks to the slow-going from the rain, I arrived closer to 7:20am and after getting my bib and a bathroom stop, I only had time for about a mile and a half before it was time to switch shoes. (Also I was literally on the line with four minutes to go when I realized I hadn't applied any kind of anti-chase measures! 😱 So that was a panicked little sprint back to my bag.)
Glad I brought a longsleeves & decided to keep that on for the race (a good decision as I was kind of lamenting my lack of gloves). I'd also brought a hat in case of rain but could already tell there was no way it was going to stay on my head with the wind so I left it in the car.
My goals for this race were:
- DON'T HAVE A PANIC ATTACK. Sub-goals of which included a) running in control vs. out of control and b) not being mad or sad the whole time.
- Go by effort. Given that there was a bunch of travel and getting up early and running on not a ton of sleep involved, I fully anticipated that I would not be 100%, meaning I should not get attached to any particular pace or time goal.
- Start at slower than (speculative) half marathon pace (so like 8:05-8:10ish rather than 7:50-7:55ish) until I figured out the right effort level, then run relatively steady, even consistent splits, and (if possible) pick it up near the end. Or at the very least avoid a steady stream of positive splits. 😬
- Run honest the whole time, i.e. ~90% effort all the way to the end, no getting fussy & phoning in the last few miles, even if it's not going well.
- If it feels bad--meaning either emotionally bad, or just physically worse than it should--back off the effort, reassess, and regain control, then see what happens. Ie, go slow to go fast, which loops right back around to running in control vs. out of control.
- At all times, accept reality. Ie no magical thinking, no this shouldn't be happening, etc. etc. Accept and deal with the *actual* situation, whatever it is, at every moment.
The wind was just nuts so I already knew that aiming for a particular pace was off the table and I would really have to go by effort. I did my best to start off slow, which inevitably means starting off REALLY fast (like, 6:30 fast), but thanks to the wind it was not too hard to let the pace drift upward.
The course was a 1.55-mile stretch that wound through the park, with a turnaround cone at each end (so the 5K was an out-and-back, the 10K was two out-and-backs, and the 15K was three. There was also a half marathon whose far turnaround cone was a bit farther than the 1.55-mile one, I assume at around 1.6375 miles).
As I mentioned this was quite a small race with I think less than 50 people in it, all running very different paces, so people got pretty spread out pretty quickly. There were two women a good ways in front of me but close enough that I could see them, which I appreciated because in spite of the efforts to mark the course, I still found it a bit confusing.
Right away, I could tell I wasn't 100% because, while I didn't feel like I was working very hard in a cardiovascular sense, my legs felt heavy and like they just weren't capable of moving much faster than they currently were. In the moment, seeing that first split of 8:05 was kind of discouraging, like "Ughh, here we go, exactly what I expected...." but in retrospect, with the crazy wind, it was actually probably just about right for a conservative first mile. I did not feel great and immediately I could feel my mind wandering to, "Jesus Christ, I have to do this six times and I'm not even through one. This is is harder than I thought it would be, not sure I can keep this up for one more mile, let alone eight." But then another part of me, the part that's been working on the mental side of things said, "Well, just wait minute. Just wait another mile and see what happens."
So, I waited. The wind was a bitch and I still didn't feel great, but those are things I couldn't control; what I could control was the level of effort I was making, so I just put my whole heart into it and tried to just keep up the effort. I was consistently gaining on the other two women but honestly that was not any concern to me at all, not only because I didn't even know what distance they were running but also because I was doing this to practice running, not to beat people.
I followed them back towards the start/finish & clocked 8:07 for the second mile. Still slow, but again with the wind, probably ok. And then as I closed in on about 2.5 miles, something interesting happened. I started to realize that I was keeping up the same level of effort, and it felt....okay? Like, not easy, but I was getting into the rhythm of things, and my mind and body were starting to get over the shock of running fast-ish and settle into a kind of comfortable-discomfort (which has always been a green flag feeling for me in tempo/half-marathon effort).
I think there was slightly less of a headwind on the return trip (though the course was winding enough that it was never all-or-nothing) because I hit mile 3 in 7:49. The two women who were in front of me turned out to be running the 5K, so after that I was on my own in terms of following the course. I made it back to the other end, clocking an 8:10 fourth mile. That was not super encouraging, but I said to myself, This is the test. This is exactly the test. When it's hard and doesn't seem to be going as well as you'd hope, that's where there's the temptation to phone it in. The test is literally: Are you going to let a slow mile get to you or are you going to be a goldfish, put your head down, & give it your best shot?
I kept going, which was tough when the wind is such that you feel at times like you are barely moving forward. But I was happy to see I was able to stay pretty consistent, with an 8:05 fifth mile and 7:49 for the sixth. At that point I knew I should be finishing the second lap soon and kept an eye out for the start/finish turnaround at mile 6.2, but 6.2 came and went without any sign of it. I didn't really know what to do but keep going and thennnnn I realized that I was about to hit the other turnaround again 😳. Somehow I had taken a wrong turn and head back out in the other direction again without ever making it back to the start.
Now this could have been disconcerting and if it had been a bigger race that I cared more about it might have been, but honestly, at that moment all I really cared about was getting my hard 15K effort in, and I was not about to expend energy worrying about whether I was following the exact course. I didn't care at all about my official time or who I did or didn't beat, I just wanted to run an honest 15K at half marathon effort and prove to myself I could handle it mentally.
I got even more lost after I turned around again, thinking at one point that I was once again heading back towards the far turnaround. I did slow down a bit then, trying to figure out what I should do, but pretty quickly decided "Eh, fuck it," and just turned around and went back the other way.
After 10K things got pretty hard. My quads were on fire and I felt like I was trying to find a little something extra but only keeping a steady pace as a result. I'd sometimes find myself thinking, "Oof, not sure I can keep doing this for another three miles," but then would just tell myself, But you ARE doing it. It's not getting better, but it's also actually not getting worse?
Part of the point of this race was to work on figuring out what I could say to myself in this part of the race, where it inevitably gets hard, maybe really hard, and you have to figure out how you're going to convince yourself that it's worth it to keep fighting. And during that hard part of the race I actually did kind of figure that out!
- My opponent here is not other people or the course or even myself; it's the circumstances. That's what I'm up against. So do not let the circumstances beat you.
- This right here, this exact thing you're faced with right now--this is exactly what you're trained for. Not the running fast part necessarily, but to put your head down and grind and persist and hang tough, no matter what happens.
- Oh, there's bananas wind? Uncertainty about the course? You're jet lagged and underslept and just spent 2.5 hours sitting in a car? Friggin' BRING IT, universe. Take your best shot. Fucking COME AT ME.
At that point, I had the strongest craving for a recovery smoothie I can ever remember having and immediately starting googling Jamba Juices locations. (I found a Smoothie King seven minutes away, which, six to one / half a dozen to the other.)
What's next? (Or rather, what was next that has now already happened?)
Eugene, baby! A concerning thing that happened was that when I got out of the car after sitting for three hours, my right was kind of stiff and painful and swollen. Not what we are looking for two weeks out from a goal race! I had plans to do an easy 7-8 miles the day after this, but I knew when I woke up that it was not happening, and since we know that there is very little fitness to be gained or lost one way or the other, I needed to focus on giving it every opportunity to recover from whatever I'd done to it.
Stay tuned, Eugene race report coming soon!
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