This saturday marks the 2 year anniversary of the only race I am somewhat proud of.
I was reflecting on this the other day and realized that this is incredibly sad. I had my only good race after about 1 year of running, and then have just been going through repeated cycles of injury, overtraining, stupid training, and disappointed expectations for 2 years. Looking back, this race changed my life... this was the turning point, when I stopped thinking of myself as a hopeless case, and started thinking of myself as someone with a mild degree of potential.
Prior to then, I thought of myself as someone who would be lucky, in her lifetime ever to break 20 minutes for a 5K. I imagined that one day, I would once run 19:59.9 and then move happily and directly into retirement. Then one day in February I ran 5:46 for a mile (a PR by 18 seconds) and 11:26 for a 3K (a PR by 1 minute and 5 seconds) at a tiny pre-season meet at Caltech. I closed the last lap in 86 seconds, drawing even with the leader coming into the last straightaway, and lost a sprint finish in a moment of weakness in the last 20 meters or so. This must have been the only race in my life where my last lap was my fastest, and I felt strangely fine--fine despite losing a sprint finish and having run a hard mile an hour or two before, fine enough to be chided that one should not be smiling when one crosses the finish line... but it was absurd to me at the time that I should even BE a participant in a sprint finish, and absurd to me that I was on pace for a 19:04 5K with ease through 7.5 laps... it as absurd enough to be completely hilarious.
But that race forever altered my perception of "fast" and "slow" and where I fell in that spectrum. This was my first race of my second track season ever as a distance runner... and surely 2 more months of training, some intervals, some long runs and minus a mile race prior to my event, surely a 19:15 - 19:30 5K was easily within the limits of what I could do. If this was me in my second year of running, I saw myself eventually running 19:00, 18:45, 18:30. A tiny flicker of potential had opened up a Pandora's box of expectations.
I don't think I ever really recovered from the disappointment that followed in that season. I trained myself into the ground, and could barely race my first and only 5K that year. Now the demons born of the disparity between perceived potential and actual achievements follow me every step of every run, the weight of disappointment and the pressure of redemption pound in my head every time I take the starting line.
I want this to be the year to leave that all behind. I realize that its less about needing a big PR to exorcize the demons, and more that I need a paradigm shift in terms of how I view running and racing and myself.
Sunday 02/04: ~10 miles, 1:26:21 in Hesperia with CMS girls team. Sunny but windy, fantastic dirt trails on rolling hills going on almost indefinitely. 4100 feet of elevation, felt somewhat worn out, but probably less to do with altitude and more to do with legs being tired. Easy 46 minutes out, 40 minutes back, refrained from pushing the pace. Stomach hurt last few miles. Goldhammer wouldn't let us run the 4 extra minutes, so doesn't meet the > 90 minutes criteria for a long run. *Consternation*
Monday 02/05: Off day today. 9 hours of sleep, so good! Throat felt scratchy in the morning, but mostly gone now. Slightly concerned.
Tuesday 02/06: 8 miles, 26 minutes warm up with Mark and Ian, 11 x 200m @ 5K goal pace with 200m jog rest, 4 x 100m striders on grass, 24 minutes cooldown with Ian. Core strengthening, bench at gym after. More talking than training today, great to see everyone.
41, 46, 44, 44, 43, 45, 45, 44, (mystery), 42, 39. Forgot to run the watch on the 9th one, had to do an extra. Presumably this is a neuromuscular workout, so really tried to focus on form and turnover. Felt crappy on warm up, 200's were comfortable, then felt better on the cooldown.
Generally feel tired and flat, despite day off. I'm about 4 weeks back from injury now, so by my calculations i *ought* to be starting to feel better right about now. Still feel like I'm behind where I was the week before Christmas, which is really discouraging.
Wednesday 02/07: 6.25 miles, 51:08 easy on Huntington. Running at night, kind of distracted, took a nasty spill on concrete about 1.5 miles in, not exactly sure what caused it, but fell on my face--literally. Skinned R knee, R elbow, nose. Really sad. Ran a little bit faster after that because bleeding and wanted to get home quicker.
Thursday 02/08: R knee swelled up and painful to bend. No running... arrrrghhhh....
Friday 02/09: 5.2 miles, 45:08 up and down Orange Grove also at night. Felt really really crappy for about 2 miles, then slightly better after that. L arch is tight, R knee is sore, breathing is choppy. Eyes are really really infected, hard to see...
Saturday 02/10: 4 miles total, 2 miles warm up, 3K race (11:57, on pace for ~800m then complete and total implosion... gave up on the last 2 laps, got passed by like 5 people in that span), 200m sprint to undisclosed location, 20 minutes of crying, 1 hour of staring blankly into space, then straight home without cooling down.
People think I'm like this crazy, insanely driven and motivated person, but there are some days where even I think that no matter what I do, apparently it doesn't make a difference anyways, so why bother. Apparently my career peak was the first race of my second track season ever and I will spend all of eternity not even coming within 30 seconds of that. In the words of Steve Slattery, "fuck this shit". Seriously.
Target Mileage: 30-35 Miles
Week Actual: 33.45 Miles
Last Week: 46.35 Miles
Adopting the training block system where every few weeks there is a recovery week. This is my first "recovery" week... we'll see how it goes.
1 comment:
Since when is missing a split a reason to do an extra? You probably had the pace nailed anyway. I'd say the only reason to do an extra is if you've lost count and are in doubt as to the actual number. In that case it probably isn't an extra.
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