...I guess I have to start somewhere. Let's go to December 21st of 2012. I was riding in the car back to Charlotte. I had the flu. I was in the car for almost 10 hours. It was not fun. There was a thought of checking into the hospital that day. The next day I was loaded up on flu medication. I watched the Panthers play the Raiders. It was a pretty bad game. But on the medicine it was A GREAT GAME.
I tried to run on Christmas and got about a quarter mile into the run and realized I made a big mistake. A half mile into the run I stopped to cough for about three minutes. I tell everyone that it was 5 minutes, but it was three. But five minutes sound so EPIC.
It took me until the beginning of the year to get over the flu. I then did a run with Matt on the first Saturday of January. It was around mile 9 or 10 when he said something like, "this is probably where getting over the flu is going to make your legs heavy". I really wanted to tell him I've felt like crap since mile 3. He went off to do his workout at mile 11 and a couple miles later for probably the first time in my running life, I had to stop and walk during the run. After that my IT Band flared up and it took me about three weeks to run again. After that it was another month to where I was close to being back.
In that time my running was been a big pile of disappointment. I did an 8k on a hilly course. Myself and a bunch of other runners took a wrong turn and made it almost a 10k. The pace was 5:50. I then ran an 10k two weeks later. And it was another fail. The wind hampered me for the first half and I finished in 35:22. A couple weeks later I ran the St. Patrick's Day 8k and couldn't get over the feeling that my legs were heavy and ran a 27:14. Then I ran the Van Metre 5 miler and ran 27:30. Another disappointing race. It seemed that the story of my running life for the last year or so was one of disappointment. It started with the Vermont City Marathon, where I thought I was in good shape and then all holy hell of flukes made it a bust.
The marathon took my legs out of me, and the summer was a bust. I picked things up in September. But after that kinda lost the fire and didn't end the year well. I was frustrated that I had all this good training, miles, and workouts, but nothing really showing it. Whether it was a course with half of it into a 20 mph plus wind, or just something flukey.
And then it leads us to this week. Two Friday's ago (not this Friday because that was last Friday, but the Friday before that) I was feeling a bit under the weather at the beginning of school. My voice felt off and I had a general sense of being off. I found out that one of my students was home, due to flu like symptoms. Well that explained it. I tried to get a run in the next day. Ran the first mile in 7:21, it felt like I had been strained and I went back home. I took some medicine and felt better the rest of the weekend.
Then last week I did a workout on Tuesday. I had the day off from school and it was just a total frustrating feeling that I was working way to hard and feeling labored and the first two miles of a tempo were at 5:39. Chalk it up to my illness or whatever. On Thursday I was planning on doing three miles at 10k pace with 2 minutes rest. I did the first one in 5:16 and then the second one in 5:20. I do the repeats around the zoo in Rock Creek. On the second one there was a Girls on the run group that took up the trail. I wasn't really in the mood to say anything and they were meandering. So I kinda just went my own path. Nearly ran over two girls and messed up my stride. Oh well. I started the third one and immediately a huge gust of wind hit and I was running uphill. After the uphill I was a quarter mile in and running 5:43 pace. F THAT. I pulled the plug and was done. I really wasn't sure what to expect on Sunday.
I was in the porta-john before the race and I heard a sound that I never really have heard before at a race. It was the sound of a dog barking. There were dogs out there sniffing for bombs. Why give jobs to dogs, when people could sniff them out? THANKS A LOT OBAMA! I didn't really worry that much about that or really cross my mind about anything vile. I just went about my business. It's just the way things are going to be.
I then did my warm up and I wasn't feeling that great. My legs didn't feel that great. I then did two half ass strides before the start. Apparently the field was stacked (and looking at the results it was). We went off and I settled in to a nice pace. I knew I was going fast and adjusted accordingly. One thing that I will not understand is why do the elite African women go out like 15 year HS boys? They go out so hard and then get dropped so soon. You shouldn't sound like your laboring after a mile into the race.
Now onto the course. You run about 300 Meters and then turn left. That's the only turn in the course. The course is mostly flat. But there are some hills. Nothing major, but enough to give your legs a work. They appear at the end of the course. And of course there was the wind. It wouldn't be a race in this area without some sort of wind. Nothing to bad, but enough for you to know that it was there.
My splits were:
5:14
5:13
5:17
5:18
5:25
5:23
1:00
To be honest I really didn't have a plan going into the race. I was just going with what I knew I had and hoping that I could hang on. I started to feel it on mile five. Mile six was all about getting to the finish.
I was really aware of making sure that I was running straight, shoulders up, breathing controlled, and opening up my stride. That was an effort that lasted through the entire race. And here is the thing, during the race with what I was hitting at each mile, the momentum carried on. The whole effect just snowballed into something bigger. I got to the third mile marker and it was 15:44 and I knew that I was going to be close to a 5k PR (I checked it and it was in the 16:17 neighborhood). I knew that there was a good chance of running a 10k in the 32s.
Now I was hoping for a run in the 33:30s range. That's kinda what I figured. I thought best case was low 33s. But now here I was running and the idea of running that time was real. I was dreading now running a 33:03 or something like that and being disappointed. The fourth mile was just a hair over 21 minutes and then I realized damn I am moving. That was a 4 mile PR and I feel good. Mile 5 was where I started to hurt. I fought through it and when I got to the 5 mile marker, the guy calling out the splits was off so I wasn't sure where I was. He called out 25:59, but that didn't sound right. It was probably 26:27. I was calculating what I needed to run to get under 32 minutes. I was in a battle with two guys. One with headphones and another guy. We were all trading spots. At mile 6 all I saw was the first number and it was 31 and damn it was go time. I wasn't going to risk it. Of course the two guys passed me, but as I was finishing I knew that it was going to be under 33 and I was going to have room to spare. The final time was 32:54, my watch had 32:53.
After the race I was all smiles. Can't say that has happened at all in races that I've run or even coached. I even gave some half hearted fist pump. The time that I ran, honestly, I didn't think I could run now and probably not even at the end of the year. But I took advantage of the situation and that's all that I could say. One of my goals was to not give up in races or workouts, fight through them when it gets tough, and I got that today.
I ended up finishing 42nd overall, just to give you and idea of how tough it was the winner ran an average pace of 4:34. Two elite women beat me. But looking at my average pace of 5:18, that's close to my 5k PR pace. It's still one of those things that I still can't believe.
The race starts at the Shady Grove metro station and ends at the White Flint station. I decided to just job back to my car. At times it did not seem like a great idea. But it was nice to do a solitary run and just have thoughts to myself. Nothing really went through my head.
Part 2 tomorrow
