Head games
Have you ever had a bad feeling about a race? We all — well, most I guess — get typical pre-race flutters on race day. I can still recall with perfect clarity the almost panicked feeling I had standing in the starting corral of the Marine Corps Marathon in 2009. I was fine right up until the starting gun fired and I saw the runners ahead of me moving out under the bridge, then my heartrate leaped by 10 BPM immediately. The thought of all that effort I was about to put in for 4 hours was daunting and purely unpleasant.
I wasn’t panicked leading up to today, but I didn’t feel right. I hadn’t run a ton the preceding two weeks. Sure, you’re supposed to taper but I dropped off a cliff, logging maybe 20 miles total. Yesterday after packet pickup I decided to take a look at the back half of the race, a section of the area I’d never seen before. It did nothing to boost my confidence, with a seeming heartbreaker of an incline over a two mile stretch from about miles 9 to 11.
As is typical for me, I decided I would be okay if I didn’t PR. Who knows, maybe it’s half of my brain playing reverse psychology with the other half. I kept flopping back and forth in my head about being okay with anything under 2:00 and shooting for a PR.
Pre-race
I’m not the best morning person, but I’ve gotten better over the years with the steady training of my daughter. Having a child that pops awake at around 7:00am without fails will do that. So the alarm went off at 5:30 and I popped out of bed, got a quick “good luck” from Cat and made my way to get ready. I’ve at least worked out my hydration strategy for half marathons quite well, so I drank two big glasses of water while eating my toast and apple sauce about 2 hours before the gun time. I’ve found that that amount gets me a quick whiz right before the gun and hitting all but the last water stop during the race leaves me feeling good and, most importantly, doesn’t have me hitting portapotties — or trees — during the race.
I got to the RBC Center just before dawn and relaxed while I read for a while in the car. It drizzled on me on the way but that trailed off by the time I got there leaving a moist but cool morning at about 55 degrees which is frankly delightful racing weather. Near race time I got in line for the portapotties and did my business getting me to the starting line 5 minutes before race time. Perfect.
As I lined up I took stock of myself. I was amazingly calm. I had no jitters. I’ve done this distance many, many times, it held no power over me. Why not? Let’s shoot for a PR. And I had a pace picked out: 8:30. Might not seem fast, but that’s fairly aggressive for me. I’ve done tempo runs up to about 7 miles at 8:10 but they weren’t easy. They’re not supposed to be. 8:30 would knock about 4 minutes off my PR. In the back of my mind I allowed myself as slow as 8:40 because that would still beat my boss’ PR of 1:54:39. We don’t compete necessarily, but it’s the closest thing I have.
Down to business
Once I made the decision to go all that was left to do was do it. The Raleigh Rocks is a rolling course but has about 10% less elevation change than the Inside Out Classic. I hit the 2 mile marker with an average pace of 8:34, but those first 2 miles were a little rough as my legs got moving after my “taper”. This is not a crowd support course though there were clusters of enthusiastic family members at various places.
The course is a bit weird, covering one section of road 3 separate times. There are no loops per se but we end up visiting the RBC Center a couple of times before heading out around the NC State agricultural areas. As such, you see other runners both slower and faster a few times during the race. On the way out we caught a glimpse of the race leaders coming towards us twice. That’s always fun and we cheered them on and they cheered us on, the second place guy — a friggin’ Adonis, bare-chested and ripped — high-fiving me as we passed each other the first time.
I’ve mentioned before that I need crowd support and I do, but I managed. Parts of me thought about slowing down to 8:40 but the parts that wanted to pick it up won out and I covered the next 2 miles at 8:28 pace. I hit the water tables and grabbed a cup and walked for the length of time it took to down it, then it was back eating pavement.
I finally started getting my legs under me and getting happier at the half-way point. That came in about 56:16 which is around an 8:33 pace. There were several bands along the course playing more or less enthusiastically that always provided a nice little boost.
There’s a lovely little downhill I was looking forward to about 7 and a half miles in. The difference between this race and others is that I didn’t save up on the downhills. Normally I coast a bit and let my heartrate recover some but this time I used those downhills to shave some seconds. Admittedly, I wasn’t flying downhill but I wasn’t loafing either. I maintained on uphills and gained on downhills. However, on this particular downhill I did save some energy because that climb was coming.
The climb came a bit earlier than I thought it would. I was expecting it around 10 miles in but instead it showed up just before 9. That’s tough. Why? Because I didn’t think this was the incline. I thought it was an unexpected precursor and it took a bit of energy and optimism out of me. Then again, I was still doing pretty well overall. I had a bit under 4 miles to go and I knew this was one of the last climbs of the day. So I kept up the pace. There was a nice breather of a water stop at the 10 mile mark at the foot of the largest climb of the day. That marked the beginning of the end since there was a little 5K left.
At this point I started picking out people ahead of me that I wanted to catch. A girl that had been ahead of me since the first mile marker, a guy that had recently passed me. They were far enough ahead that it was a stretch but once I got to the top of the hill I knew I had it in the bag. I maintained an 8:35 pace up that climb which, for me, was something that late in a race.
I actually didn’t know what the last 2 miles looked like. I knew it was mostly downhill, so I picked up the pace. Mile 12 passed in 8:11. There were a few last unwelcome climbs in those last couple of miles but I was too close to care. Any surplus energy I had at the end would be a waste, right? At about 12.5 miles I actually saw Cat and Julia waving at me from the finish line. This seems simple, but the topology didn’t make it obvious. There was a little greenway that led from the road up to where the finish was that left an opening in the trees that looked down on the section of course I was on. Cat had positioned herself perfectly and it gave me a huge lift seeing them waving and knowing they’d be there at the finish.
Cruising past at the end
Post-race thoughts
My girls met me after the finish and we recovered and listened to some music while Julia danced (she simply cannot help it). I go back to my earlier thoughts about the race and wonder about how my mind works. Is it a defense mechanism? Is it the way I deal with my own expectations? Is it a way to temper my own disappointment if I don’t meet my expectations? I don’t know. Thinking back, I’ve done it for almost every race and so far I’m still PRing every race. That likely can’t last. Everyone has a bad race or a more challenging race and I will have one that changes my fortunes before too long. It’ll be interesting to see how I respond.
This is as close as Julia would like to get
