I've been trying to get excited about racing again. I miss feeling my nerves swelling through my body and the butterflies fluttering through my stomach up to my throat as I toe the starting line. I miss the joy of racing as I have focused on the clock and pacing way too much. I need to bring my racing back to a RunHappy state. I can't say that I was excited to race on Saturday, but I am happy to say that I had a lot of fun!
It all started with a sleepover at my good friend Amy's. As we prepared our race gear for the next morning, we noted that our numbers were extremely close. As in, she was 1308 and I was 1309. How that happened, I don't know. But I considered it a sign of good things. Amy has her pre-race dinner set in stone, she is a very ritualistic kind of girl. I on the other hand, haven't quite ironed these things out. My stomach has been very delicate lately. I've been playing around with my diet as I've found that I don't function well with sugar or grains (of any kind) and had a mish mesh of dinner: sweet potato and red lentil stew, sushi, broccoli, and a little salad. Only time would tell how it would work for me.
We stayed up way too late. We had to get up at 4:15 a.m. in order to get to Brooklyn in time, so we ended up with less than six hours of sleep. I desperately wanted to stay in bed, but alas, I dragged myself up and performed some morning rituals to ease my stomach. For some reason, I can go to the bathroom (if you know what I mean) every morning with little issue, but on the day of a race, nothing happens. I don't get the urge until I get to the race. As we got to the starting area, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to christen a pristinely clean port-a-potty with plenty of toilet paper. When does that ever happen? Port-a-potties, might just be one of the nastiest things about running! I can handle some chafing, even in unmentionable areas. I can handle vomiting from a hard effort. Hell, I can handle peeing my pants if I have to just to save a few precious minutes on my race time. Port-a-potties though, they are just nasty...Runner Problems
So anyways...as we crowded into the corral, I ran into some of my new teammates (more on my switching teams in a future post). NSQ (a.k.a. Mrs. Coach Cane) is by far one of the awesomest women I know! For real, if you don't know her, I feel sorry for you! She is not only an extremely upbeat person, but also an amazing athlete. She challenges you to excel to your highest potential. Who doesn't want to be around a friend like that?!?! We discussed race strategy. The plan was to run a negative split, running slower through the hilly first half and faster on the flat second half. We all had similar goal times in mind, so we would stick together as much as possible. As the gun went off, we started running. We weaved through runners a bit at the beginning. It's hard to keep track of everyone when there are multiples, but we did our best. After about a mile, I realized I was ahead of most of the group and following Lete, an amazing Ethiopian runner. I didn't know at the time how fast she was having just met her the first time. Now I know!
I always go out too fast, but I had no idea how fast I was going until I looked at my Garmin. I had just been focusing on following Lete. Oh well, my only strategy was to keep running as fast as I could. In the end, I lost sight of Lete by mile 2, but then a colleague of mine, an Iron Man, ran up beside me. He tagged along with me for a couple of miles, but it was just a training run for him so he eventually fell back (although, I will say he ended up with a half marathon PR). It was fun to chat for a bit and keep my mind off the approaching hills in Prospect Park. They weren't as bad as what I was prepared for, but I did end up slowing down some. I kept my eyes peeled for Amy's "groupies" (a couple of supremely awesome women) who were out cheering at designated locations along the course. I missed them at the first spot, but they saw me and yelled, so I kept my mind focused on looking for Sharon's hot pink socks towards the exit of the park. Sure, enough, she was hard to miss. I was ecstatic to see a familiar face. I was ecstatic to know that I was halfway done and the rest of the course was flat, well relatively flat. As we exited the park, there was a slight incline on the ramp to Ocean Parkway, just when I thought the hills were over.
By mile 8, I was starting to slow down a bit, but I urged myself to continue running hard. My stomach was hurting from the gel I took a few minutes earlier and I suddenly felt the urge to pee, which was likely due to stress versus actually having a full bladder. I so wanted to let it flow. as mentioned before, I refuse to stop in a race to go. However, I have never mastered being able to pee while on the move. As I was thinking about all this and contemplating my options, I remembered that I was wearing white shorts. I am taking an antibiotic that turns your pee bright orange, and I really didn't want to advertise to the world that I had peed myself. With no port-a-potties in site and no safe place to hide, the only other option at the moment was to hold it. So I squeezed and squeezed as I ran.
In order to keep my legs turning over quickly, I kept my eyes focused on specific women, targets to either pass or not let get too far ahead of me. I focused on my breathing in order to relax and work the oxygen through my muscles via deeper breaths. I repeated mantras ("hurts won't kill you"...thanks again to my dear friend Elena for that one..."persevere"..."you are strong"..."can't stop, won't stop"). I stopped focusing on my time and pace, as I was running steady, and instead focused on getting to the finish as quickly as possible. It worked because I kept running steady without slowing down further. As we approached the boardwalk, I became more and more excited, knowing that the finish was getting close. With 200m left to go, I sprinted, crossing the finish in 1:25:31, a 3 minute and 26 second PR. Even better, Lete was there waiting, and we waited for the rest of the team, including Amy.
I did everything wrong in preparation for this race. Eating something new for dinner and breakfast for that matter, wearing an untested outfit with questionable chafing potential, not getting enough sleep, going out too fast, but it all worked out in the end. Maybe it was because I tapered really hard, taking a few days of full rest. Maybe it was because the stars were aligned for a good outcome. Whatever it was, I will take it! I couldn't be happier for having such amazing teammates and friends to share the experience with! I look forward to racing again soon!
