Why did I sign up to run this race? This race has often been a Pacific Association race & part of the Road Short Course Grand Prix. (This year it was also the USATF Masters Road Mile Championship, which means some REALLY FAST masters were out there competing for an individual national title.) I ran it last year more as a warm body than anything else because we needed three masters women and no one else was available.
To refresh your memory, I had a rough spring of running & racing in 2023. I'd been fighting with various injuries on and off for months and because of that really struggling to run more than 6-7 miles at a stretch, let alone get in anything resembling a workout. I ran an absolute dumpster fire of a 10-miler in early April, then had a bunch of travel over the next two weeks that culminated in getting Covid about a week and a half before the Masters 10K National Team Championships in Dedham, Massachusetts. There were only three of us going at all, and it was really a race against time in terms of testing negative so I could get on the plane in good conscience. (If you've never raced a 10K the week after having Covid, I do not recommend it!) The Mile of Truth was just six days later and I was really, really hoping someone else would end up available, but a couple days out it became clear it was just my two teammates and me.
Because there was no one else, I showed up, definitely not fully recovered from Covid and definitely DEFINITELY not recovered from racing a hilly 10K in the rain while *barely* not sick with Covid. I told the ladies I would do it but just, it would be a gd miracle if I managed to run even *one* sub-seven mile. They said all I had to do was show up and do my best, so that's what I did.
Mile of Truth 2023. My official time was 6:58, so. Who delivers for you, babe?
Now. I am not nor have I ever *really* been a miler, so I wasn't personally invested in my time in this race at all. Though I have sometimes been curious about what kind of time I could run in an all-out mile if I really trained for it and had a good day. A funny thing happened after running this race in 2023, though, which was that I suddenly became really really curious about that, especially given that I knew circumstances were so especially bad for me on THAT day. I resolved there and then to run the race again in 2024 and to be in at least better-than-passable shape for it, even if I didn't specifically train for the mile.
And then what happened?
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