Negotiations

It's been a while since I have run with the intention of running "as fast as I can"....a LONG LONG while. Because I had not run the Cookie Dash 5K on the new course I decided to sign up and attempt to "race" it. My A goal was to run the whole thing, but I knew going in that was unrealistic because I haven't run more than a full mile straight since last fall. (When we came back from living in Colorado Springs for 6 weeks I ran 3.5 miles of trails without stopping!! I thought I was queen of the world!)

One fact I wasn't considering-this is now an afternoon race. I do NOT like running in the afternoon. I don't see how people do it. I feel like if I haven't gotten my workout in by 10am the day is lost! That is especially true for running! 

Dwayne volunteered to make cookies for the race-which I found amusing since he NEVER cooks/bakes. But he did this all on his own! (They were the break and bake cookies, but he made a special trip to the store to buy them and baked them all himself-like 5 dozen (maybe more!?))

We loaded up the cookies and headed to the race. On the way we saw what should have been a TERRIBLE wreck! Thankfully it happened at the exact right time for us to avoid being hit head on, and at the exact right time for it to only be a single vehicle accident where no one ended up hurt. Guard rails SAVE LIVES! But it really shook me up to say the least. We also found out there was STANDING WATER in Dwayne's back seat (but that's another story for another day).

We got to the race; Dwayne scooted off to get in place to volunteer, I visited the potty and then lined up in what I thought was about the middle of the pack. But when the race started it seemed as though I was in the back.

Almost immediately I felt like I was the last person running and every person was running off and leaving me. I looked down to check my pace about 1/3 mile in-8:45. I wasn't running slow but it honestly felt as though EVERYONE was running off and leaving me. Small children, a man with a cane, a woman pushing a stroller...what felt like EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the race was leaving me in their dust. It was mind-blowing and oh so discouraging. I kept thinking "how is everyone here so fast!?" I questioned my data but I certainly felt like I was running "fast".

I knew I couldn't keep it up, so I started negotiating with myself. I landed on "I'll run 5 minutes and walk 1 minute"...after all I had been doing a 3/1 or a 4/1 leading up to this race so 5/1 was pushing it. I was also running much faster than usual. That first 5 minutes was an average pace of 9:18. After my minute walk break I started running again-with no hope of catching the runners in front of me (but I did realize I was indeed not dead last). My second 5 minute run was an average of 9:22. I was pleased that I hadn't slowed too much, but I also didn't think I could keep up with that interval. My heart rate was 177 which was fairly high for me. 

The negotiations resumed..."Okay, I will walk until my heart rate is 155 and then run again"...that took about 75 seconds. Hmmm..."Okay,  I will run 4 minutes for the next interval"...This time my heart rate got up to 179 but my average pace dropped to 9:19.

I was about 1/2 done and I was feeling it. I was wishing at that point that I had signed up for the one mile instead of the 5K. I kept playing "leap frog" with several people. One pair was a woman I know who is a little older than me (and a lot faster than me) running with a young gal. They were running solid so when I walked they passed me but when I ran I passed them. But they were talking NON STOP and I was doing good just to BREATHE.

After the 3rd "long" interval I started to walk but realized the aid station was just up ahead so I forced myself to "run" to it. That's when I saw my sweet husband! He and one other guy were the only 2 working the aid station. 

I SERIOUSLY considered stopping to help them but I quickly realized they didn't need help because I was so close to the back of the pack we were spread far enough out that two people could easily cover it! At that point my overall average was 9:47. I just couldn't understand how everyone was SO FAST in this race. Dwayne told me later that I was NOWHERE near the back. I think it was just a case of it being a very small race so everyone was very spread out along the course.

I grabbed water from Dwayne and he asked my how I was doing. I really couldn't talk at that point but shook my head and kept going.

Dwayne "gets on to me" when we run together because I talk A LOT. He says "if you wouldn't talk so much you could run faster". But 1) when I'm running with him talking IS the point, 2) I like talking more than running and 3) I haven't really thought about running "fast" in a VERY VERY long time. Well, on this day, in this race, I couldn't talk. I could barely tell the volunteers thank you.

After I left the aid station I renegotiated my interval to 1/1. My HR dropped to 154 and went up to 172 then back down to 153 for the next walk break.

I had a chat to remind myself my goal was to "race"...to "push". My HR was recovering quickly so I renegotiated again to 1 minute of running and :30 of walking. I only had a mile to go. Ideally I would just run it. I briefly considered slowing down to try to run the whole last mile, but I truly felt I would have a lower average pace if I did the interval so that's what I landed on, for the next 3 intervals.

At some point I passed a friend of mine who passed me back just after the aid station. We might have played leapfrog just a bit but at some point he left me behind. He was close enough that I thought I might be able to catch him so I set my sights on him. About that time a woman and her daughter who looked to be about 8 or 9 passed me chatting about my hat...I was wearing my Flying Pig hat (not from the Flying Pig race, just a hat with flying pigs on it). I felt so very discouraged that I was running as hard as I possibly could and this little girl was passing me, chatting it up with her mother.

I don't remember a time I felt so utterly discouraged in a race. It was the strangest feeling. I honestly couldn't figure out how EVERYONE was passing me so easily. It wasn't as if I was running super slow, my overall average at that point was about 10:11 which "should be" about middle ground for a 5K. (It WAS about middle ground, but at the time it didn't FEEL like it!)

When I got to where I could see the finish I had about 1/3 mile to go. I kept telling myself to just RUN the whole thing but my HR was telling me to take the :30 walk breaks. Even though the breaks weren't enough to bring it down more than a beat or two it was preventing it from climbing higher.

When I hit 3 miles I ran in the last .1 in 90 seconds at an 8:26 pace (peak HR of 182) to finish in 31:57. I finished 174th place out of 324. Solidly in the middle of the bell curve, a bit slower than 1/2 way, and certainly NOT in the very back like it felt. I was 8th out of 16 in my age group (17 really but the last one was the sweeper so I'm not counting her). Interesting side note, the female masters winner was 63 years old and she ran a 21:42!!

When I take a big step back and examine my performance against the backdrop of my "training" I did phenomenally well! That's the fastest 5K I've run in 7 years!! The closest I've come to that time was a 5K I ran with Dwayne in 2019 at John Hunt Park. We ran it in 33:34 with him pushing me the whole time. Before that I ran a 5K training run in 31:15 (9:54 pace) (surely with Dwayne) in October 2015, and a 5K run in 30:01 (9:09 pace) that was much of the Cookie Dash course (but backwards) on a random Tuesday morning. 

I completely believe I still have speed in me...I just have to train it back out!

Since Cookie Dash I've made the decision, and signed up for, Memphis 70.3 (October 1st). I've been swimming 3 times a week for a few weeks now, and I've been running fairly consistently on Tuesday and Thursday. I have ridden my bike twice...I've already "trained" more than I did for my last 70.3!! But the plan is to ACTUALLY train, with an actual plan that I will write up today that will include not only running, biking and swimming but yoga and strength training!! 

Here goes something!

Another Half with a Friend

After Oak Barrel Half a friend asked me if I was going to run the Bridge Street Half. I had not planned on running it. I don't love that course -like AT ALL- but I do love the finish party and I usually love the medal. This year the medal was fine, the registration shirt looked really awesome, but the price was more than I really wanted to pay for a cool shirt. But when my friend said she was considering it I said I would absolutely do it with her. She is the gal who ran with me for my first ever Rocket City Marathon. She is in the group I've been running with on Tuesday and Thursday and I just love her to pieces. I knew we'd talk the whole time and I knew I wouldn't even see the course for the conversation, so I signed up.

The shirt didn't disappoint, except WHY do shirt makers think women like v neck shirts? I don't understand why 95% of the time men's are crew neck and women's are v neck? I like a more fitted CREW neck shirt....and the shirt is super thin....but I love the way it feels and it's sweet looking.

The morning of the race my friend picked me up and the chatting began! Another friend was going for a PR (sub 2 hour half) so we talked some about that. I knew it was going to be "easy" for her because she was BARELY over at Oak Barrel and Bridge Street is a much flatter course. 

We went to the bathroom and then lined up...minutes later we were off. We set out to run a 3/1 interval (just like we do Tuesday/Thursday mornings). My legs were TIRED. I was wondering when we first started if I was going to be able to hang on the whole time. My friend had been having some issues with her hip/piriformis; she was saying it was going to take a little bit for it to loosen up so we commiserated a little bit but we stayed on target almost the whole time. It felt like we blinked and we were at mile 3 or so. 

I saw another friend who had been at Oak Barrel; she asked what interval we were doing (3/1) and asked if we minded if she stayed with us. Of course we didn't. But I think we didn't give her an opening to join in our conversation! She stayed with us quite a while and was running strong but I noticed that she was holding her head down and breathing heavier than I would have expected in the run intervals*. At one point I looked back to see where she was; she said she was fine and told us to keep going.

(*When I saw her after the race I asked if I could share a couple of my observations with her...when she said yes I talked to her about keeping her chest "open" and her head up while running...she told me a few days later she tried it and felt much better! YAY!)

The miles were really flying by. It didn't really register on me just how far we were running until about mile 8 and I realized we still had 5.1 miles to go! I have to admit, I was TIRED and HOT. I think that race doesn't have quite enough aid stations but then again, it would help if I carried water with me! I also wasn't paying close attention to fueling. 

Dwayne was watching my live track and was texting that we could break two and half hours but we slowed way down toward the end. We were both tired and she was in pain. There's a couple of little hills on the backside, and then there was the zig zag of the Double Helix... (I'm in the minority probably but I do NOT like that part of the course-running on concrete and zig zagging along a DNA strand is tiring to me!) I had to laugh because his mentality in a race is "run the fastest time possible"...my mentality lately has been "run with friends I love to chat with and enjoy my time with them!"

We were both ready for it to be over about mile 12...we ran around the Westin for the 2nd time of the day and then jumped a curb to run into the heart of Bridge Street and across the finish line! 2:33:05. Sweet! I felt confident if I had been out there to get the fastest time possible I would have broken 2:30...but I knew without a doubt I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much! We found out just after we finished that our friend had indeed broken 2 hours!

We got water and a banana, chatted with more friends, and headed home. 

Later that day Dwayne and I were running errands...I told him about reading a blog when I first started running written by a gal who had run a half marathon and then was doing all kinds of things with her family the rest of the day. I remember thinking how crazy that seemed to me. In my mind I would have needed a nap and would have been wiped out the rest of that day and the next! But here I was doing that very thing.

It's funny because I'm pretty far into my "athletic career" as it were but I continually find myself struck with shock over where I'm currently at. I think the biggest factor at play is the five years I've battled with the effect/after-effects of the brain disease. To be at a place (FINALLY) that I can run a half marathon on a whim and then run errands the rest of the day (and then teach a hard Spin class the next morning, that I actually DO myself)...shocks the crap out of me!

Thanks so much to the friends that keep me going! 

Next up--my first RACE in a LONG time...and more shocking myself!

Thanks for stopping in and sticking around.