Of Races Won and Lost

Ok, so there’s no prayer of me ever winning a race, but hey, the title was kind of catchy.  What I’m speaking of is of course the Sunday’s Oklahoma City Half Marathon.  I definitely didn’t win and didn’t loose either, but came in right at the middle of the pack.  While I had hopes of a massive PR going into the race, I was humbled very quickly by the weather.  The conditions were, to quote Robin Williams, “hot and shitty with crappy to come”.  Temps in the high 70’s at the start and humidity in the low 80% would have made for a great day to sit on the beach and sip margaritas but not to run a race.  When I was sweating like the piggy that I had for lunch by mile 2, I knew it was gong to be a bad day.  To make matters worse, it was windy – really windy. 

I pushed hard, but by mile 9 I was tired, hot, windblown and dehydrated. I pushed, but when I found myself working hard to maintain an 11:00 pace into the wind, I just gave up.  Mentally I was toast…my goal wasn’t a PR, but the free cheeseburger that I prayed that the gods of Hardee’s would be providing to the finishers.  To make a long story short, I was discouraged, demoralized and kind of pissed when I crossed the finish line.   I should have been able to nail this race!

I stayed pretty pissed until today.  Eladio (aka the Runner’s Edge sage) sent out a post mortem email of the race.  I’ll spare you the details, but basically I wasn’t alone.  Apparently the average time was 10 mins slower this year than last (when conditions were decent).  Anecdotal reports that I got from all my friends that ran the race confirmed that. With that new knowledge I actually felt better about my performance on Sunday. 

If I can pull any positive from the otherwise crappy experience, it was that I need to start training myself mentally if I’m ever going to get good at this tri thing.  During the race I found myself destroying myself mentally even though my body still had plenty left to give.  Once my mind was out of it, the heart went, then the legs and finally the race.  That book that Rianman recommended that I read about mental training for triathlons – yup – its on the coffee table waiting for me.  Guess what I’m off to do after I publish this puppy?