Racing teaches us to challenge ourselves. It teaches us to push beyond where we thought we could go. It helps us find out what we are made of.
– Patti Sue Plumer
The Woodlands puts on a great race on Thanksgiving Morning. I love the feel of the race; I always have a lot of friends and colleagues that participate, Christmas decorations are going up, and the weather always seems to be conducive to running well for those who wish to do so. Whether I participate of just cheer, I always feel very connected to the running community at the YMCA-sponsored event when it comes around.
I have missed running in the race over the past two years due to what we’ll call ‘personal circumstances’ (can you tell I’m tired about talking about the ‘I’-word! ;)), however, this time around was different and I signed up for the 3-mile race that was offered. RTTW has a 5 mile, which is the marquee distance, but the 3-mile brings some speedsters out to play too. Training has been going well and I have been playing around with at least threshold speed in short intervals, as Coach Doug has wisely been progressing me at a sustainable rate. I have been enjoying the challenge of overcoming the positive pain of training and I decided it was time to jump in and run a race in a festive but relaxed environment. I also wanted to see how my ‘new’, more solid running mechanics developed through core and specific strength work would do at faster paces.
The plan was to basically run the thing at threshold pace and see where I fell outcome-wise. Personally, I wanted to get comfortable with being uncomfortable again. While I had done some triathlons in the summer, road racing to me feels and has different expectations with performance. In full disclosure, this made me nervous-not really a bad thing, but it was definitely there, so much so I had difficulty eating my typical race or workout morning breakfast of a bagel with almond butter. Why? Perhaps because the longest interval I had done so far (non-Alter-G) at threshold pace is about 3 minutes. I was going to run 19-plus….well, gotta put yourself in the ring and see what you got sometime! In a way, I welcomed the pre-race nerves that kept me up way too early and bouncing around the race site and probably annoying people with my sporadic banter and lack of focus. Sorry guys, I get spacey around race time! Lastly, I was wearing my Oiselle team kit for the first time and wanted to do it justice.
It took a little longer to get myself centered and over the fear of the unknown: how I’ll feel, how my body will respond, how well I’d be able to focus, blah, blah-I remembered that the unknown was part of the sport and I just went with it. Clearly, I still want to do very well, regardless of the event I am participating in. Using process-oriented goals was helpful: I wanted to stay focused on my form, average 6:25-6:35 (my current lab-tested LT paces) and not worry about winning or who does or does not beat me. That and just get a good run in. I knew I could do that. A bonus was to break my negative mental habit of racing afraid.
Now to the actual race itself-
After getting in a short warm up and probably driving myself and my friend Justin into way too many people and random turns not called out well (I told you anxiety makes me loopy), I finished my bottle of Cytomax I was sipping and headed into the starting chute. Not too crowded, but still not too easy to get into position. I put myself 2 or 3 rows back. Soon enough, the nerves were all gone as we were in the first ½ mile of the race. Then I made the observation that I liked the simple narrow-loop course that was almost completely flat. 1st mile came through at 6:25. I was pretty dialed in and running in 3rd F position and was successfully managing my own “workout” race (who knows, I may actually like doing these?). And my stride felt good. Really good.
The second mile was pretty smooth as well and came quickly. The third is where the lack of training started to register but instead of fearing the pain and negative consequences of exertion, I decided to embrace it and just roll with it. I came off pace a little but recovered enough to get back on in the last ¼ mile or so. I had just enough left to kick it in at the turn to the finish and made it count. Yep, I have work to do, but was overall encouraged with the result: 6:35 pace, 1st AG, and 4th OA female.
Of course it’s all relative when a 19:45 is just an ‘okay’ showing for me, but there are a few things that give me optimism from this race: first, as I have written about before, despite the nerves prior, I did not RACE afraid. I simply had a plan, ran that pace as long as I could sustain, and that was it. Dealing with pushing the envelope- I knew it would hurt towards the end, BUT-after today, chances are it will not hurt that bad again. And if it does, the pace will be faster-and I can handle that effort without body parts falling off! While my turnover and speed-endurance is not there yet, my body is probably stronger than it’s been in a LONG time. The biggest issue was putting the legs and lungs together to press through the hard last mile and manage fatigue. That will come. Base building coupled with all my auxiliary work and time is paying off.
Also, as far as average pace is concerned this year (due to interrupted training)-I am improving. Fastest per-mile pace in ’14 so far in a year where all I really wanted was to see was some positive trend results-wise. Like I tell my athletes, any improvement should be paid attention to and put in your “confidence bank”.
Okay, back to the race….after the O2 debt wore off, I was pleasantly surprised how good my legs felt and how quickly I was able to recover. I took off on my cool down, cheered the 5-milers on, and had the fleeting thought of “I can’t believe these are my legs”. I got a nice plaque for my award and a little gift certificate to the local running shop for the effort and a good workout in the bank that will help me in the future. Equipment-wise, I will be racing again in the Adidas Boston, which has proven to be a reliable pick for me. I had a new pair of Honey-Stinger logo arm warmers that were perfect in length and fit. I may not be back up to blazing speed, but at least I look good out there! LOL
Post-race I hung out for quite bit and learned that a lot of friends had great races. Lots of PRs and everyone seemed upbeat. Maybe that’s what I like about this race, the atmosphere, although competitive, seems highly positive. Today I cross-train, and then it’s back to base and threshold building work; enjoying the process and getting stronger.
24 hours afterward, given it was a short distance, my legs feel surprisingly good, no beat-up feeling or that annoying needing to stretch feeling that used to constantly plague me. I made it a point to be proactive with my recovery with getting compression gear on, cooling down properly, foam rolling and my new favorite thing: an Epsom salt bath in the evening-which is a great excuse to relax and read for a while. Anything to pamper my “old new legs”!
Congrats to everyone who raced out there this week! Thanks to my sponsors and partners-Oiselle, Honey Stinger, and Athletic Republic (for the sweet running mechanics) for their support. Thank you Coach Doug for helping me get to a better place in my training and racing over the past few months.
Stay the course.
3 comments:
Congrats, nice job!
Nice job! I know you'll just continue to get faster & faster! :)
Same for you!!
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