We probably couldn’t have asked for better weather this morning. It was a mild 54 degrees at race start (and basically throughout), so I finally got a chance to race in the singlet/arm warmers combo, which I think is super cool (plus Jen Dixon and I just got new matching pink arm warmers; they coordinate with the pink on my shoes; they are totally rad; and yes, I still say “rad”).
Jen and I started with the 1:50 pace group (1:50 was our goal time), but we quickly left them behind and settled into a zippy pace. We were both trying not to look at our Garmins (but who can resist, really?) because we knew we were going faster than we intended. We were shooting for a 8:15 pace; we were closer to 7:45-8. After about three miles of this, Jen was still feeling good, but I knew I couldn’t stay strong at that pace, so I told her to leave me and not look back. Friends don’t let friends miss out on huge PRs.
Until about mile six, I was able to keep myself going at about an 8:15 pace. Then, I began to really notice some stabbing (no drama!) pain in my left foot and left hip, and as the pain intensified, my pace slowed. A blister was the culprit on the foot; the left hip was this crazy IT band/ankle/hamstring “involvement” (to quote the wise Ellen) I’ve been nursing for a couple weeks (I refuse to call it an injury because it’s not). I felt from the beginning that something was off with my foot (my orthotic was rubbing for some unknown reason), but I think that as the hip got more sensitive and I adjusted my gait to compensate, it put more pressure on the foot. It was a vicious, vicious cycle.
So, at mile 9-ish, when I noticed that I’d slowed to a 9-ish pace (I caught myself actually shouting “No!” at my watch because I had really hoped for better) and quite a few people were passing me, I started walking. I walked for just for a minute, and it seemed to help—until the 1:50 pace guy passed me. I’m not going to front: I was totally bummed. I started to run again and tried to catch up, but I just couldn’t get there. And I watched my goal bounce away (literally, since the guy was carrying a stick with a yellow balloon that had 1:50 written on it).
I ran again until the aid station around mile 10, where I walked for another minute to drink some water and eat the rest of my Stinger gummies, and I resolved to run the rest as fast as I could no matter how bad it hurt (the “I’m-so-over-this” race plan). The final stretch has two pretty solid hills, but I was able to stay focused and get over them (it helped that there were some chatty doctor dudes behind me telling interesting stories about organ transplants). And I was able to keep the last mile around 8:30 to finish up with an official time of 1:51:17. Clearly, this was not the 1:50 I was hoping for, but it’s still a PR at little over 3 minutes better than my last half (1:54:54 at the treacherously mountainous Skinny Turkey on Thanksgiving day), almost 8 minutes better than my 2012 Tobacco Road time, and almost 16 minutes better than my 2011 Tobacco Road time. So, I’m telling myself to just be happy about it and eat my race cake.
My only takeaway for this race is that I’ve decided I need to take a break from distance racing. My heart was not in this race. I was not and still am not at all excited about it. I am, on the other hand, excited about some shorter races I have coming up. While I know that I’ll still have long runs on my schedule every week, I’m going to keep the long races off the calendar until next year so I can get control of my headspace about them. It will happen; I will be back (but I’ll make sure my comeback is on or near a beach).
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Cary Short Course Duathlon
(2.5-mile run/17.65-mile bike/2.5-mile run)
I hesitated to write this report right away because I am not in a very good place about this morning’s race. But, in my day job as writing teacher I often tell students that it is important to write “where you are” and “what you know”—even if you are not where you want to be, and you feel like you don’t know much. I am taking my own advice.
The start for this race is kind of a mess. Strike that: it is a complete hot mess. Everyone lines up on the narrow trail around the park to start together (long and short course together even. Last year, they split us up by race, which made for a slightly more efficient start). There is also no start timing mat, and despite the fact that the race directors tell faster folks to head to the front, there is no real sense of where that is because the space is so silly. So, I ended up starting behind a crowd of causal joggers and trying to weave my way to a better spot once the race got going. For a 2.5-mile leg, this is an unfortunate waste of time because it took me a solid quarter mile to settle into a pace that I was happy with. At this point, it was 7:30 (Side note: who has two thumbs and never thought she’d put the words “settle in” before 7:30 pace? This gal.)
I wanted to keep that pace for a long as I could because I knew (since I did this race last year) that there were two uber-giant hills at the end of leg and that I’d need to back-off significantly when I got to them. And I did, in fact, drop to about 8 for that last half-mile. So, in the end, the official pace for Run 1, with all the aforementioned “slowing” factors considered, was 7:58 (2nd in my age group!). Last year, my official pace on the leg was 8:23. I’m happy, therefore, with the progress—especially given this year’s slower start. Even in my current state of mind, I can give myself that a 25-second/mile improvement over the course of a year is something I need to just go ahead and be proud of.
Then there was the bike course, and this story takes a bad turn. My dirty little secret is that I really don’t like cycling. I kind of despise it, in fact. I used to like it, but somewhere along the line I just started to hate it. It’s expensive; it’s hard to talk to friends when you ride together; and it’s very weather- and time-sensitive, which as a working parent, I have less-than-zero tolerance for. So you are probably thinking, “Gee, JLa, maybe if you changed your attitude you might improve your performance.” I’m working on it; I promise. But for today, the bike leg just demoralized me. The weather was chilly (low 40s) and breezy (race stuff was blowing all over the place), so this made a challenging, hilly course even tougher. People I’d schooled on the first run just kept sauntering past me, and I just fell apart mentally. I kept thinking: “Go big or go home? I choose go home.”
I was able to pull myself together by focusing on looking for horses and cows to count (6 and 3 respectively) and planning what I was going to write in this race report, but I was beyond relieved to pull into T2 and the second run leg. As anticipated, Run 2 was a little slower. I had what I call “the googly legs” after getting off the bike, so my pace for the first quarter mile was, according to the Garmin, about 8:45. I gradually moved myself closer to 8:15 (which was the slower end of my probably unrealistic goal pace for the second leg), and again, I had to back off a bit for the ending hills. Based on my Garmin reports, my pace for this leg was 8:30; last year’s official Run 2 pace was 8:55.
I actually have no official splits for the cycle or Run 2 because apparently my timing chip didn’t work after the first transition, so the race results just show me leaving T1 and then finishing the race. Oh well. Seems a fitting mishap for this experience.
In the end, my overall time was 1:51:36, about 3 minutes slower than last year. Part of the reason this time causes me such angst is that it is the first time (at least that I can remember) since I started seriously running and multi-sporting that I have not improved from a past race time. I know, I know, it’s really unrealistic to expect a PR in every race. Still, the clock is there; it cruelly taunts us sometimes. Bright side: I always eat cake on race day, and a PR is not a requirement for cake consumption.
Takeaways: I need to decide if I am going to invest in the training equivalent of couples' therapy for my relationship with cycling. I have already registered for the Triangle Tri in July, so perhaps I’ll try to spend some QT on the bike and make a call after that race. Running wise, this really reaffirmed my excitement for the shorter races as well as my commitment to keep pushing on the speed and tempo work.
Bonus: This was the first race I’ve been to in the past 6 months that actually had perfectly ripe bananas rather than inedible neon green ones (can anyone actually eat those and live to talk about it?). Mega props to the race organizers on that one.
The start for this race is kind of a mess. Strike that: it is a complete hot mess. Everyone lines up on the narrow trail around the park to start together (long and short course together even. Last year, they split us up by race, which made for a slightly more efficient start). There is also no start timing mat, and despite the fact that the race directors tell faster folks to head to the front, there is no real sense of where that is because the space is so silly. So, I ended up starting behind a crowd of causal joggers and trying to weave my way to a better spot once the race got going. For a 2.5-mile leg, this is an unfortunate waste of time because it took me a solid quarter mile to settle into a pace that I was happy with. At this point, it was 7:30 (Side note: who has two thumbs and never thought she’d put the words “settle in” before 7:30 pace? This gal.)
I wanted to keep that pace for a long as I could because I knew (since I did this race last year) that there were two uber-giant hills at the end of leg and that I’d need to back-off significantly when I got to them. And I did, in fact, drop to about 8 for that last half-mile. So, in the end, the official pace for Run 1, with all the aforementioned “slowing” factors considered, was 7:58 (2nd in my age group!). Last year, my official pace on the leg was 8:23. I’m happy, therefore, with the progress—especially given this year’s slower start. Even in my current state of mind, I can give myself that a 25-second/mile improvement over the course of a year is something I need to just go ahead and be proud of.
Then there was the bike course, and this story takes a bad turn. My dirty little secret is that I really don’t like cycling. I kind of despise it, in fact. I used to like it, but somewhere along the line I just started to hate it. It’s expensive; it’s hard to talk to friends when you ride together; and it’s very weather- and time-sensitive, which as a working parent, I have less-than-zero tolerance for. So you are probably thinking, “Gee, JLa, maybe if you changed your attitude you might improve your performance.” I’m working on it; I promise. But for today, the bike leg just demoralized me. The weather was chilly (low 40s) and breezy (race stuff was blowing all over the place), so this made a challenging, hilly course even tougher. People I’d schooled on the first run just kept sauntering past me, and I just fell apart mentally. I kept thinking: “Go big or go home? I choose go home.”
I was able to pull myself together by focusing on looking for horses and cows to count (6 and 3 respectively) and planning what I was going to write in this race report, but I was beyond relieved to pull into T2 and the second run leg. As anticipated, Run 2 was a little slower. I had what I call “the googly legs” after getting off the bike, so my pace for the first quarter mile was, according to the Garmin, about 8:45. I gradually moved myself closer to 8:15 (which was the slower end of my probably unrealistic goal pace for the second leg), and again, I had to back off a bit for the ending hills. Based on my Garmin reports, my pace for this leg was 8:30; last year’s official Run 2 pace was 8:55.
I actually have no official splits for the cycle or Run 2 because apparently my timing chip didn’t work after the first transition, so the race results just show me leaving T1 and then finishing the race. Oh well. Seems a fitting mishap for this experience.
In the end, my overall time was 1:51:36, about 3 minutes slower than last year. Part of the reason this time causes me such angst is that it is the first time (at least that I can remember) since I started seriously running and multi-sporting that I have not improved from a past race time. I know, I know, it’s really unrealistic to expect a PR in every race. Still, the clock is there; it cruelly taunts us sometimes. Bright side: I always eat cake on race day, and a PR is not a requirement for cake consumption.
Takeaways: I need to decide if I am going to invest in the training equivalent of couples' therapy for my relationship with cycling. I have already registered for the Triangle Tri in July, so perhaps I’ll try to spend some QT on the bike and make a call after that race. Running wise, this really reaffirmed my excitement for the shorter races as well as my commitment to keep pushing on the speed and tempo work.
Bonus: This was the first race I’ve been to in the past 6 months that actually had perfectly ripe bananas rather than inedible neon green ones (can anyone actually eat those and live to talk about it?). Mega props to the race organizers on that one.
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