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February 18, 2007
Tale of Broken Dreams
Well, everybody has a bad race now and then - and this was my certainly not one of my better performances. Even though my training had been pretty consistant, much of my run training has been focused on either a) A one mile run, which I am trying to get under 6 minutes OR b) Long runs (12-15 miles) to prepare for the Bidwell Classic in March, and to build a good base for the 1/2 Ironman in July.
It appears that in the hustle of my training, I forgot how to run a 3.1 mile race (or at least how to run it quickly).
The first thing I did, was my usual mistake of going out way too fast the first mile - when I clicked the lap timer on my watch at the first mile at 6' 31", I knew two things: 1) That I was not going to be able to sustain that pace 2) Going out that fast was going to make the rest of the race very, very ugly.
Sure enough, mile two was ulgy - with a 7' 30" pace - and the third mile was only marginally better. I ended up being 7 seconds SLOWER than my time last year - and 4th in my age group.
I've spent much of the afternoon pondering this race - trying to convince myself that it was "just a bad race" and that next year I will be faster. I'm not sure that I did a good job of convincing myself - I keep having nagging doubts that my race speed may have peaked with my run last year - and in spite of pretty consistent training, my bodies biological clock is going to ultimately win in the battle to slow me down.
This is the first race, in almost 5 years that I have been slower than the previous year. Today this feels like one of those "bellweather" life events - the first gray hair, or the first time you realize that by golly, no matter how hard you train and how much effort you put in - you are getting older and slower....
Posted by Dennis at February 18, 2007 03:34 PM
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Hey, funny that. You're the guy I was talking to at the race ;-) I was kinda thinking you seemed familier when I was talking to you then it dawned on me that I read your blog about the race when I was looking up infomation about it the day before...
As for the "bad race", you just have the look at the photo to remind yourself that this 28 year old was about a half a mile away about to give up. (but I won't remind you that a little boy of 8 years passed you up half way along the race ;-)
Posted by: Isaac at February 18, 2007 04:25 PM
Hey Isac,
Imagine that - we have a chance meeting both in cyberspace and in the real world!!! If I can get my hands on the results I'll post'em here - but I'm not sure that I'll be succesfull.
It was good talking to you Saturday, thanks for coming down and supporting our community.
You did a great job on your race - and yes, I'll quit crying in my beer about my race and just get over it!!!!
Later,
Dennis
Posted by: Dennis at February 19, 2007 07:52 AM
Hi, Dennis:
Yes, going out too fast is hard to resist.
When I was a more serious runner years ago in Seattle before a big race - usually a marathon - I would run a couple of practice runs in the week before with the goal of exactly sticking with whatever my goal pace was. It was a way of internalizing the feel of the pace and sticking with it. In those last practice runs (with a watch, by the way) I forced myself to adhere to that pace.
It seemed to work. I ran a good chunk of the race at that goal pace and then if I felt better later I could still pick up the speed if I had extra energy. It definitely helped me to avoid that surge of competition at the beginning of an event that leads to a too-fast start.
If you must cry in your beer make sure it's at least good beer. Good luck in the Bidwell Classic!
-- Greg Fischer
Posted by: Greg Fischer at February 21, 2007 08:38 AM
Hey Greg,
Thanks for the comments - and I am doing the whole pace run thing the next few days, to try to convince myself how to properly run the Bidwell Classic. I seem to do better on the longer runs, it's the short ones that I tend to mess up.
Maybe someday I'll move up to using a HRM - but so far I have been resisting that next step - as I really enjoy the simplicity of not being electronically "tethered".
Later,
Posted by: Dennis at February 21, 2007 07:59 PM
Dennis, I too have never worn a heart rate monitor and have no interest in ever doing so. A plain ol' watch does the trick for me.
Posted by: Greg Fischer at February 23, 2007 07:48 AM
Dennis - this makes me think about your first couple of blogs and wonder - even though you may have slowed down 7 seconds, what would your time be if you hadn't put all the time and energy into getting to where you were last year!! My recent head-on collision with the big 4-0 has me recently wondering if I haven't peaked - knowing there is a lot more deep inside my competitive spirit waiting be let loose and "fly or die". As you, I will continue to let it loose even if it means coming late on a time trial or being the last up the hill on mtb climb (last week was a tough one)! Maybe we can relish in beating a tandem up Honeyrun during the Wildflower - I'll take any victory I can get lately!!
Take Care,
Paul
Posted by: Paul at March 12, 2007 11:46 PM