...well, technically it began this past Saturday, with the Hudepohl 14k. This year I placed 3rd with a time of 43:08.
Except that I didn't actually run a 43:08. The next day I received an email from the race director saying, basically, that the cones were marked wrong at one place and the top four runners actually (and accidentally) ran about a third of a mile short. Basically, add on another minute-to-minute-and-a-half to my time.
Except maybe not exactly. A 14-kilometer race translates to 8.6 miles; however, according to the race's course map, the actually distance of this race is closer to 8.9 miles. That's about a third of a mile long.
What lesson should we take from this? Finishing time is essentially irrelevant. I ran somewhere between a 43 and 45 minutes for the full 14k. On the fast end, I ran 4:57 pace, which is right on target for the half-marathon Olympic Trial qualifier (just add on another 7k). On the slower end, I ran 5:10 pace, which is a time that tells me I'm on the right track, but not quite there yet.
Finishing time is a nice way to judge a race because it's objective. It's simple and quantitative, informing us in clear minutes and seconds how fast we ran. Of course, without an accurate time, that evaluation system goes out the window. So I've had to use a more qualitative way of judging my performance.
My reaction to the race is mostly disappointment with a shred of optimism thrown in. One of my goals for this race was to run the second half stronger than the first half. Maybe not necessarily faster (it's hard to negative split races), but stronger. It was a mental toughness thing. I feel like I did this pretty well up until about two miles to go. I let the person I was racing next two gap me on the downside of a hill; a four-second gap that held to the finish line. I had about a mile of mental weakness which could have made the difference between 2nd and 3rd place.
I was also disappointed with how I felt during the race. Only two days earlier I had felt great. Phenomenal. Let's run the race on Thursday instead of Saturday. On the day of the race, I felt awful. I knew it during pre-race strides. Today wasn't going to be my day; I couldn't feel any pop in the legs. Whatever it was, I just didn't have it. Which brings us back to the toughness issue: running is weird; sometimes for no apparent reason you just feel terrible. It happens. It's not going to be easy every race. The best runners are able to gut it out when it's not their day. That's something I didn't do on Saturday, and it's something I need to work on in the future.
But let's end this race recap with some optimism. I ran much better than last year; in fact, I was even pretty similar to my race from two years ago, when I was in very good shape. That's a positive, the fact that I'm rounding out into my old fitness from college and just after. Additionally this was a very good workout, and it should very much advance my fitness going into two half marathons in the next month.
I just don't like losing such a close race (even if it was only for second and not first).
Except that I didn't actually run a 43:08. The next day I received an email from the race director saying, basically, that the cones were marked wrong at one place and the top four runners actually (and accidentally) ran about a third of a mile short. Basically, add on another minute-to-minute-and-a-half to my time.
Except maybe not exactly. A 14-kilometer race translates to 8.6 miles; however, according to the race's course map, the actually distance of this race is closer to 8.9 miles. That's about a third of a mile long.
What lesson should we take from this? Finishing time is essentially irrelevant. I ran somewhere between a 43 and 45 minutes for the full 14k. On the fast end, I ran 4:57 pace, which is right on target for the half-marathon Olympic Trial qualifier (just add on another 7k). On the slower end, I ran 5:10 pace, which is a time that tells me I'm on the right track, but not quite there yet.
Finishing time is a nice way to judge a race because it's objective. It's simple and quantitative, informing us in clear minutes and seconds how fast we ran. Of course, without an accurate time, that evaluation system goes out the window. So I've had to use a more qualitative way of judging my performance.
My reaction to the race is mostly disappointment with a shred of optimism thrown in. One of my goals for this race was to run the second half stronger than the first half. Maybe not necessarily faster (it's hard to negative split races), but stronger. It was a mental toughness thing. I feel like I did this pretty well up until about two miles to go. I let the person I was racing next two gap me on the downside of a hill; a four-second gap that held to the finish line. I had about a mile of mental weakness which could have made the difference between 2nd and 3rd place.
I was also disappointed with how I felt during the race. Only two days earlier I had felt great. Phenomenal. Let's run the race on Thursday instead of Saturday. On the day of the race, I felt awful. I knew it during pre-race strides. Today wasn't going to be my day; I couldn't feel any pop in the legs. Whatever it was, I just didn't have it. Which brings us back to the toughness issue: running is weird; sometimes for no apparent reason you just feel terrible. It happens. It's not going to be easy every race. The best runners are able to gut it out when it's not their day. That's something I didn't do on Saturday, and it's something I need to work on in the future.
But let's end this race recap with some optimism. I ran much better than last year; in fact, I was even pretty similar to my race from two years ago, when I was in very good shape. That's a positive, the fact that I'm rounding out into my old fitness from college and just after. Additionally this was a very good workout, and it should very much advance my fitness going into two half marathons in the next month.
I just don't like losing such a close race (even if it was only for second and not first).
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