First, the quick recap:
- Official time: 2:08:04
- Personal best by 4:20 (previous PB 2:12:24)
- By any measure, that’s a huge jump in performance.
Why am I not really satisfied? (Or more importantly – I’m feeling guilty about not being satisfied because in fact today was quite an accomplishment! At age 45, I have never run so fast for so long in my life, and I know I could run faster! Isn’t that amazing when you really think about it?)
Because I think I could have done better; because every other person I trained with (except one) finished faster (look at that handsome bunch of healthy people in the picture!), because I knew I wouldn’t hit my “A” goal just after the 5K mark, and I knew I wouldn’t hit my “B” goal before the 15K mark, even though my pace was stronger than ever before. It’s tough to recover from negative self-talk like that in the middle of an endurance race.
Let’s back up: here were my tiered goals for today:
- “A” goal that I set in January: sub-2 hrs. Reward: that tattoo I’ve been wanting for 10 years.
- “B” goal: sub-2:05. Reward: 2 summer dresses + necklace I picked out at Lark & Sparrow yesterday.
- “C” goal: sub-2:10. Reward: 1 of the dresses. No necklace.
- “Just finishing:” A spa day with a friend. Ok ok, I was going to do that anyway.
So – even though I realized that my stretch goal of sub-2 hrs was improbable, my goal of 2:05 was well within reach.
I felt crappy from the start. Even though I came to the first 5 K at about 29:00 I felt like I was pushing it too much, I was worried I wouldn’t have enough for those tough hills at the end of the course. I got a stitch in my side that took from the 7 until the 12 K mark to disappear. My legs felt heavy and tired. Many times, even before the first hill, I wanted to quit.
You are what you pay attention to: this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I did the same workouts as my pace group friends who came in ahead of me; I was trained and ready. My own brain failed me: we now know that our brain tricks us into experiencing fatigue and pain when in fact our muscles are far from failure.
Brain training starts next week, find out how after the jump…
