Some Details After All

So, a correction from my earlier race report: In the overall results, I placed 111 out of 173 finishers, not 134. To the non-runner this may seem inconsequential, but to the runner - huge! That means I finished in front of 62 people, not the mere 23 I had previously thought. Go me!

I mentioned details in my previous entry, technical, tactical, and mental, and thought that I would go into some of them here after all (thanks, Laurie).

Technical

• This was my first time racing with my Road ID, which freed me up to only use existing pockets instead of carrying a pack, however small. I carried house keys, my bus pass, my iPod and my Garmin, nothing else.
• This was also my first time wearing my Garmin. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet, it ended up being a bit distracting, especially after the race when I had not yet gotten the official results.
• Also my first time racing in my calf sleeves - yes! I felt like a dork but pretended I wasn't wearing them. Added bonus: they kept my legs warmer in the nasty weather.

Tactical

• I made sure to warm up (in part because it was so cold) and I think it made a sizable difference in being able to start off strong and stay there.
• I started off tired (this event started late in the morning and I'd been up for hours already wrangling a toddler). I tried for a feeling of lightness and lift through my torso. Although at times I felt I could go faster it would have been at the expense of that sense of lightness, and I knew I could not afford to push that way until the very end.
• I also held myself back the first mile by keeping my breathing through my nose.
• As usual, I let myself tear down the hills and then muscle my way up them. Crazy but fun, with the added profit of possibly confusing my fellow competitors. I really need to find some trail events.
• While I was able to accelerate a bit in the second half and over the last mile in particular, it was clear to me that I wasn't going to be able to sprint until the very end. Luckily, about 200m from the finish line, two ladies that I'd previously passed put on their own surge. Exactly the push I needed! I couldn't keep up with them in the end but they got me going for those last seconds.
• I have to work more on getting to the inside corner. Running with the Garmin showed me that I ran an extra 0.15 miles - easily an extra minute. And this was over only a 10k.

Mental

• I knew (from practice) that I could push myself in the second half and then again in the last mile and again in the last 100m. Because I knew it, I could do it. It makes a difference to know that so much of performance is mental. Practice really does make perfect. I don't think I used any new mental tactics at this race but even six months of practice on my weekly runs has made a difference.
• And pain is not something to be afraid of. Again, the more I practice this, the easier it is to believe.

Random Details

• The whole first half I had an odd feeling of being pushed... on the turnaround I realized what it was - the wind. Which was now in my face. I am such a contrary bugger though that I like the feeling of pushing against something (I also like hills).
• The next two days I was wiped out. I have never been so affected by a race or run afterwards. So that was also proof to me that I have gotten better at pushing myself past what I think I can do.

I feel like I am being tempered as a runner (the way metal is tempered in a fire). I like how this feels. I suspect this is also carrying over into other areas of my life and I like that as well. But perhaps this is just the result of being now firmly in my 40s and of being a mother. So much just seems inconsequential now. But that's ponderings for another time.

Next race is next Sunday!

Wrigley Start Early 10k - A Race Report of Sorts

In light of Boston, I really can't bring myself to post a detailed race report of last Saturday's Wrigley Start Early 5/10K.

Which is kind of a shame, because it was amazing.

Not the event itself. That was not well organized, it was muddy and windy and cold and snowy (!), and they cut the festivities short (including food and volunteers) because of the weather.

But because...

Not only did I break an hour (59:52)...

Not only did I fight the entire way to make that happen, the first time I've really done that...

Not only did I learn all kinds of useful things for future races (tactical and equipment details, I don't need to go into them now)...

Not only did I put into practice a number of mental strategies I've practiced over the last year...

But because I came in first in my age group.

Booyah!

I must point out that it was an extremely small field, and I came in 111 out of 135 overall. (I started at the back and I think I remember passing every single one of those 24 people behind me.) But of the eight women ages 40-44 who finished, I was the first. By 6 seconds!

Ah, victory.

Needless to say, this was an incredible way to start my racing season.

Plunging In

Tomorrow I will be running my first race of the year, about two weeks earlier than I had planned to, and three miles longer.

Huh?

I am still signed up for the Ravenswood Run 5K at the end of April. But my training for that has gone seriously off the rails, between injury and illness. I may still try to go all out, but I was less and less happy at the idea of making that be my big first race of the season.

Tomorrow is the Wrigley Start Early 5/10k, and I had already planned to take part (and was trying to get a group together from work) since that event benefits Voices for Illinois Children and Prevent Child Abuse America. I had been thinking of maybe just taking the Goobster in his regular stroller and doing the 1M pledge walk. I have a bit of a history with that event and thought it would be neat to revisit it after a break of a few years.

And then stuff shifted around, as they will, and I was given the opportunity to go on my own, without child, and I thought, "Why not just go for the 10k?"

I've been running that far, so I'm not concerned about covering the distance. And in reading my notes from the last time I ran it I can see I've learned a lot about racing, so I'm not worried about blowing up. So, why not?

I have a cute new haircut and hairband, I have a morning to myself, the weather should be cool but dry, it's right along the lake... Should be fun!

To finish in under an hour I would need to do 9:40 miles. I think that's unlikely right now. To beat my last 10k (in 2010) I would need to do 9:54 miles. That, I think is possible. It will take some effort, but I think it is possible.

Off to create my playlist and have a last snack before an early bedtime. Wish me luck!

Races I Am Not Running

The Dude signed up for the Chicago Marathon today.

I am so happy and excited for him.

I wish I were too.

I am very grateful that my pleasure in his training for it is not diminished by my sadness that I am not. Especially since the one is a direct cause of the other. Evidently I have grown (some) in maturity along with years.

I am also not signed up for the Wrigley Start Early 10K, and I am sad about that too, though for an unexpected reason. I was looking forward to having that be my fundraising event for the year, and now that I am not doing it I feel oddly bereft (it's on Easter weekend this year and we expect to be traveling).

Well.

There are all kinds of good reasons beyond scheduling to not run the marathon this year --- I do very much want to spend the year building up my base and getting more experience in racing mid-distance events. And now that I know how important it is to me to have a fundraising event I will keep my eyes open for another one. So all will be well...

But for today, big sigh.

Wrigley Start Early 10K 2010 Race Report

Good grief, this has taken entirely too long to write.

It did take me about a week to be nice to myself when I thought about it. In the end I realized that most of my difficulties were in my head, not my feet.

Here's what went well:

1. It was a beautiful day.
2. And a scenic course.
3. I ran it with good friends! Thanks, Allison! Thanks, Kim!
4. It was for a good cause, child abuse prevention.
5. And it was good practice - both in what do I need to do differently in races from now on, and in handling disappointment.
6. I met my first goal (sub-10:00 miles) - a final result of 1:01:21, an average pace of 9:54 per mile.

Here's what I want to do differently in the future.

1. Be honest about my goals to myself.
   
2. Then know beforehand what mile splits I need to hit to reach those goals.
3. And know where the mile markers are!
   
4. Find ways to focus myself and be present when things get hard, for my legs or for my head.
   

In the end my actual accomplishment was all I could have asked for. Yes, I went out too fast at the beginning, but I was able to stay steady for most of the rest of the way, to gut it out when it got really hard, and to kick it up a wee little bit at the end.

Thanks to good training, I've gotten better. I've gotten faster. So now I want to see that better and faster in my races. But that means pushing myself in new ways, and that means I need to make friends with discomfort. Because it isn't comfortable to run fast for long periods of time. But it would have been a LOT easier this past Saturday if I hadn't been going through all my unnecessary mental gymnastics at the same time.*

And now it's gotten especially important for me to learn this since I've gone ahead and signed up to do the Chicago Marathon on October 10. And of course, being me, I'd like to do more than "just finish."

But this has also confirmed something important for me to know - in the face of disappointment and frustration, my first instinct was to figure out what I could do better, and then look for the opportunity to put that into practice.

(I'll practice first on another 10K at the end of May, though, not on the marathon. I'm not that foolhardy.)

And now I am finally done with this race report. I can go back to writing about the important things in life, such as the newfound realization that the skin around my knees has seriously lost its elasticity - I think it's time to embrace running capris.

*Such as, uncertainty around where the mile markers were and how fast I was going, frustration when I knew for certain I had gone out too fast and for too long, and disappointment when I thought I had really missed my mark. Which really impaired my ability to enjoy the race for what it was - a glorious spring day on which I was running faster, for longer, than I ever have before.

Here We Go!

Wrigley Start Early 10K today. My training has been going well - better than expected in fact - but the last two weeks have been rough personally and I'm feeling a bit depleted. So my first goal for today is to keep a 10:05 pace - while my "cross-the-fingers" goal is to finish in under an hour.

I'll have to write more later - right now I need to feed myself and the kid and get myself dressed and ready to go in under an hour. Oh yes, and teach Buddy how to make his singing horse sing on his own so I don't have to keep doing it.

Keep your fingers crossed!

It's On!

I have mailed in my registration for the Wrigley Start Early 10K run on Saturday, April 10. This will be my third time running this event, the second time at this distance (they have both a 10K and a 5K).

I have good memories with this event. The first time I ran the 10K, in 2007, it was the first race I ran where I felt comfortable with the distance. I had already run that far a few times in training and wasn't scared of the distance - I knew I could run that far and so I could look at improving my performance, not just getting through it. (I know this is how I should have done all of my previous races, but oh well). I remember feeling that I had done a good job and run it smartly.

Then last year I ran the 5K (here's the race report). It was my first race since the 10K two years ago, and I was glad to be running it at all. And especially glad that I felt I ran it well.

Since then I have logged many more runs, both longer and faster. I've been careful with my training this last month since my ankle is still tender (but slowly getting better), but after the last couple of weeks I feel I can not only do this distance, but in fact run it as a race, so I'm excited about that.

What makes one run a run and another one a race? For me, it's not only about running faster than I usually do at that distance, but about really pushing myself to do more than I have before. Hoping that the careful mix, over time, of long runs, tempo runs, and speed intervals, plus race day adrenaline of course, will combine into the ability to push myself farther than I can do so otherwise.

This year I'm heading up a group from church as part of our Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month outreach. We'll likely be a small group - but we will be full of heart! I'm looking forward to it all.

Wrigley Start Early 5K - April 18, 2009

So, I started off the day by running... late.

Man, if this had been my first race I would have been panicking. Thankfully by now I've run enough races to know the usual drill, plus I knew where to go because I ran this race in 2007, though they have changed the course since then. I did insist that we go ahead and park in the zoo lot, despite the hefty fee - normally The Dude is a stickler for finding the best deal on parking and other matters. Good thing we stayed in the lot, though, since part of the new course involved running on the streets we'd planned to find parking on.

I got dropped off and waved a kiss to Buster and The Dude, got my race number and t-shirt, dropped off my jacket and juice, figured out how to attach the disposable time chip to my shoe, used the facilities, then joined the other people streaming over to the actual start post. I had barely time to stretch... and we were off! The big thing for me at the start of races is not to go too fast - I thought that would be easy this time since I hadn't gotten much sleep in the days before, plus was not warmed up. Mostly my body just hurt and complained as I tried to settle in to a steady pace and watched great streams of people move past me. That's my usual start to races - watching great streams of people move past me, that is, not feeling achy.

This was one race where at first I regretted not running with music. When I do my weekly runs I almost always listen to music - it helps with the run and also gives me a chance to listen more carefully to new music or music I love, since I don't get enough opportunity to do so otherwise. But on race days I feel it's important for me to be fully present for the experience - completely aware of my surroundings and what is going on with me. But that means I don't have it to fall back on when the running is harder.

So at the beginning, to keep my focus off of how hard it was, once the crowds thinned out a bit, I looked for who was near me and likely to stay there. Just behind me there was a mother-daughter couple - it was the daughter's first race. The mom was clearly an experienced runner, trying to coach her daughter as they ran (although her daughter kept saying, "Don't ask me questions! Don't talk to me!"). Her daughter had the right instinct, since one of the first things I heard the mom say was, "If you run a 10-minute mile, then this will only take a little over half an hour. Ten-minute miles, pretty good for a 9-year-old." Meanwhile I was thinking, "Lady, while I can run a 10-minute mile, I'm certainly not doing it now. And you're staying steady with me, so you aren't either. Don't set your daughter up to fail - let her first race be a success." And in fact, over the first 2K, they needed to take more and more walking breaks, until finally I lost them behind me.

The same thing happened for another group near me. A woman in her early 30s caught my eye - she had on a black visor, black running shorts and top just cut to cover her bra, but then white arm sleeves covering her forearms, white racing socks that went up to her knees, plus a tattoo of her kid's feet in the small of her back. Quite noticeable, to say the least. Then I realized she must be a pace-setter for a group, and sure enough, there they were, two frathouse-gone-to-seed guys, both dressed in black t-shirts and shorts, just behind her. I came up behind them just as they were starting a walking break and could hear her giving advice to them about pacing. As I passed them one of the guys said something friendly to me, I don't remember what, and I smiled and nodded, and said "See you at the finish line." I could tell by the way he looked at me that he wasn't expecting me to finish or not anywhere near him, at least. And soon after I stopped for my first walking break, a little after mile 1, and they passed me. But again, they started taking more and more walking breaks, I could hear their pacer talking to them about steady breathing, and then they were behind me and gone.

That's one of the things I love about racing, even a short distance. You can't be stupid about it - it's important to run a smart race. To think about your distance, and your pace setting out, and the weather conditions, and your condition particular to that day, and when you'll take your breaks if you are, and when you'll take water or food if you're going to, and the people around you, and the terrain... all of that goes into figuring out how you can run the best race possible for you on that day.

And even then there's plenty of room for surprises. I did take off too fast after all, and knew that I would be struggling over the distance, but I found I couldn't go slower - the adrenaline of racing makes that hard to do sometimes. So while I hadn't been taking walking breaks in my training runs, I knew I would need to in this race, and just hoped (through sheer determination) to keep them to once a mile.

I got to the first mile marker and saw that I had done it in just over 12 minutes, which was much faster than I had expected. (I hadn't been keeping careful track of pace in my training runs, but I knew it was somewhere between 13-14 minutes a mile, possibly even more. Back when I had been running more regularly my race pace was usually about 11 1/2 minutes a mile, and I knew I wasn't anywhere near that condition). At that moment, despite how difficult the first mile had been, I thought, "Huh, maybe I can maintain that pace. I'd certainly like to."

During the 2nd mile, enthusiasm and a water break kept me going at that pace. At the beginning of the 3rd mile, however, I realized I was going to need something extra, I was going to have to find a way mentally to keep going, and going strong. I slowed down a bit to give myself a break, and thought about what I could do to inspire myself.

At the beginning of the race, when I was surprised by how hard I was finding it, I thought about why I was doing this particular race in the first place (to raise money for child abuse prevention), and I thought about all the people who were supporting me, through donations and through their thoughts and prayers. That helped me while I was warming up, until some of the aches eased up. At this point in the race, however, I knew that thinking about things was not going to carry me through - I needed to find something inspiring that was beyond thought.

What I needed was a running cadence. I started with something we'd sung to Buster while visiting his Nana at Easter - "Hey baby, hey baby, wipe those tears away" - it was the first thing that came into my head. I sang that for a while but it didn't seem cheery enough, so then I switched to a song I'd been singing to him the day before that felt more appropriate - "We're walking, we're walking," - only for this I changed it to "We're running." This worked and gave me the extra oomph I needed. It's always very satisfying to find some mental key that unlocks greater effort when it's needed.

We're running, we're running, under the bright blue sky.
We're running, we're running, under birds that fly.
We're running, we're running, under the great gold sun.
We're running, we're running, we're having ourselves some fun!

In the last 1/2 mile things began to reverse themselves and I started steadily passing people. I kept looking ahead to get a sense of where the finish was, and then looking inward to see if I had the reserves to quicken my pace and sustain it for the duration of the course. At one point, actually, I misjudged how close the finish was and picked up my pace, only to realize a couple of minutes later that it was farther away than I'd thought and I'd better drop back down. And that was satisfying too, to see that I was going to be sensible about this, that as hard as I was willing to work to keep myself going and meet my goals, I also knew when to back down so that I'd end the race excited about what I'd done AND wanting to do more.

And then I saw the finish line, and knew it was a distance I could go ahead and push more quickly on, and then I saw Buster and The Dude smiling and waving at me (well, The Dude was smiling and waving, Buster was looking a bit grim - he's not wild about his stroller any more), and I knew I could step it up just a little bit more for those last yards (though no sprinting, not that day, not yet) and then I was done. And I walked around a little bit, decided not to eat an unripe banana, snagged my favorite kind of energy bar from a race sponsor and went and found my guys.

Final time for my 5K --- 37 minutes, 36 seconds, for a pace of 12 minutes, 8 seconds per mile. Two walking breaks.

Initial goal when I started the day --- 40 minutes, no more than three walking breaks.

I so rock.

Fundraising goal --- $200.
Final tally --- $385.

Thank you, my friends! You roll.