I have been staring at the white screen of this page for a couple weeks now, on and off, trying to think of how to describe this race. I can't even call it a race. I wasn't racing against myself, let alone anyone else...not even against the clock.
The morning started off at 6:30AM, loading ourselves into my friends' (Victoria and Chris) car, only to discover that it wouldn't start! All the other cars at the hotel were pretty much at capacity for runners, but our friend Alan and his wife agreed to swing by our hotel to pick us up on their way to the race start. Phew! Crisis averted! Got there, checked in, etc with plenty of time to spare.
I started off with my legs feeling dead - not an ounce of spring in the step - but it was also still pretty cold, with temperatures hovering just below freezing. My first four miles actually went by at a decent pace. Nothing too fast, hovering just below a 10 minute per mile average. From there, things went rapidly downhill. By mile 8, I felt like I'd already run 30. My head felt like I'd just emerged from a day under water and my chest felt like it had a iron vice clamped over it. I couldn't draw a full breath and my legs felt like lead. I might as well have been running at 14,000 feet. Except I usually feel significantly better at 14,000 feet than I was feeling during this run. At mile 11, I was around 10 minutes slower than I'd normally be in a training run. And from there on, I just hemorrhaged time. My average pace dropped slower and slower until, around mile 19, barely able to maintain a 15 minute mile, I slipped my watch off and shoved it in my pack for a few miles. I felt horrible enough without having visual proof of just how slow I was moving.
Around mile 15, I was ready to quit. I've never DNF'd a race. I didn't. Mostly due to a couple of good friends who flat out told me to cowboy up (cupcake), and the looming mental game of running my first 100 miler this summer. It was pretty pathetic. Pathetic, as in the most pathetic I think I have ever run in my life.
But, after a pathetically long amount of time running a not-that-slow course, I finally found myself at the finish line, surrounded by friends, cold beers, free soup, and a chair to sit in.
I feel like there should be some big moralistic take away from this. But I don't really have anything profound to say except this: there is little that is more motivating than knowing that if you DNF, you'll have to explain why you quit and gave up. It's way easier to push on and later say that you had a bad day and your time sucked.
At least later that night, we got to have some fun around a huge bonfire and consume delicious lasagna, courtesy of Dakota (and mostly his awesome Mom).
The morning started off at 6:30AM, loading ourselves into my friends' (Victoria and Chris) car, only to discover that it wouldn't start! All the other cars at the hotel were pretty much at capacity for runners, but our friend Alan and his wife agreed to swing by our hotel to pick us up on their way to the race start. Phew! Crisis averted! Got there, checked in, etc with plenty of time to spare.
I started off with my legs feeling dead - not an ounce of spring in the step - but it was also still pretty cold, with temperatures hovering just below freezing. My first four miles actually went by at a decent pace. Nothing too fast, hovering just below a 10 minute per mile average. From there, things went rapidly downhill. By mile 8, I felt like I'd already run 30. My head felt like I'd just emerged from a day under water and my chest felt like it had a iron vice clamped over it. I couldn't draw a full breath and my legs felt like lead. I might as well have been running at 14,000 feet. Except I usually feel significantly better at 14,000 feet than I was feeling during this run. At mile 11, I was around 10 minutes slower than I'd normally be in a training run. And from there on, I just hemorrhaged time. My average pace dropped slower and slower until, around mile 19, barely able to maintain a 15 minute mile, I slipped my watch off and shoved it in my pack for a few miles. I felt horrible enough without having visual proof of just how slow I was moving.
Around mile 15, I was ready to quit. I've never DNF'd a race. I didn't. Mostly due to a couple of good friends who flat out told me to cowboy up (cupcake), and the looming mental game of running my first 100 miler this summer. It was pretty pathetic. Pathetic, as in the most pathetic I think I have ever run in my life.
But, after a pathetically long amount of time running a not-that-slow course, I finally found myself at the finish line, surrounded by friends, cold beers, free soup, and a chair to sit in.
I feel like there should be some big moralistic take away from this. But I don't really have anything profound to say except this: there is little that is more motivating than knowing that if you DNF, you'll have to explain why you quit and gave up. It's way easier to push on and later say that you had a bad day and your time sucked.
At least later that night, we got to have some fun around a huge bonfire and consume delicious lasagna, courtesy of Dakota (and mostly his awesome Mom).
