After racing for an hour and a half, stopping to puke like I did has made my legs tight. You’d think stopping might be relaxing, but that’s not the case; running for that long, you get into such a groove that it is easier to just keep on going than it is to change paces.
Don’t slow down.
My first few steps back into stride feel like a baby giraffe’s, but it only really takes a minute or so before I am able to slide back into the rhythm of the race. Except, the race has left me behind.
I actually do feel better after clearing my stomach, though. A little bit lighter on my feet.
For a few miles, I had forgotten about the blisters forming on my right foot, but when I bent over last mile I noticed a small red patch around my pinky toe. That’s not good.
While a two-lane highway like we have been running on seems like a perfect surface, you’ve got to be careful; the camber will seriously mess you up, especially as you fatigue and your stride gets lazy.
I had compartmentalized the pain of the blisters as a separate annoyance from the fatigue of the race, but as I am accelerating back up to speed it is a whole ‘nother aggravation. They were in a state of mild discomfort, but something I could live with; now, however, it’s like I’m ripping them open all over again.
Don’t think, just run.
As I was about to round the fire station last mile, I had the lead pack in my sights. Now, the peloton is in sight, but just a little far out of reach. The lasso is too loose. I don’t know if I can close this gap…
But.
I look ahead again. There are three more casualties off the back. Three more athletes coming back to me.
Use these guys just like you did the last two. Get one, then another. Lasso the next; then the leaders. Hopscotch your way back into it.
That’s how you have to break it up: you can’t bridge the gap all at once, so you have to jump it in smaller chunks. That’s all a marathon is anyway -- chunking an obscenely long distance into manageable pieces. 26.2 miles at marathon pace is a seemingly unattainable feat. But 6.2 miles at marathon pace? Doable. 3.1 miles? Simple. Just one more mile? Easy.
After my first 10,000m race -- 25 laps around the track, what felt like a marathon at the time -- I started using a mental trick to distract myself from the mind-numbing distance. I didn’t invent it; an upperclassman teammate of mine passed it down to me, and I have to say it is a brilliant method. Instead of counting every lap (either down from or up to 25), you break the race into individual miles -- four-lap segments. So you count: one lap, two, three, four (one mile), one, two, three, four (two miles)...and repeat until the last mile. That last lap you’re just running all on guts.
The method works so well because it keeps you mentally present and breaks the race down into manageable chunks. 6.2 miles at near-4:40 pace? That’s damn intimidating. Just one mile at 4:40 pace, repeated six times? Now that’s doable -- hell, I’d done it in workouts before.
Okay, so after this one there are eight miles left in the race. Don’t think about how much more you have to do. That means there are four two-mile chunks. I’ve done the 4 x 2 mile workout plenty of times in the last year; all the way back in the late summer I was able to average sub-10:00 pace. And you’re in much better shape now than you were then.
I just need to make it through mile 20. Then I can re-evaluate before the next two-mile stretch. I can do that.
Feeling physically better than a mile ago, the eighteenth mile passes in 5:05. These small mental tricks are helping. Now all I have to do is negative split to the finish. Simple, right?
Head up, don’t look down. You’ve got three coming back to you.
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