Take What The Road Gives You

It's not often that I have a junk race to play with.  This morning, I was afforded that opportunity at the Car2Go Marathon Relay here in Austin.  A fellow Rogue had a free entry to the race (6 team members, 4.37 miles a piece) and I jumped on it.  We all went into this with no intentions, have fun (some of us were just logging miles, some of us were using it as a workout, some of us were just using it as a means of sweating out the sins of last night).  I was using it as a workout as I missed a QW two days ago and wanted to get back out and get one in after Sioux Falls two weeks ago.

4 am to 6 am

Not knowing the logistics of a Marathon Relay, I woke early and figured I would log a few miles with my TRPM teammates.  I wanted to be around for a few miles to check in and see how everyone is (A lot of them are coming up on races and I like keep in tune with them).  So I got 1.5 in with them and headed back to Rogue.

6 am

Back at Rogue I rolled, fiddled on my phone, watched the new half marathon groups filter in, and waited... the beginning of a long wait.

7:10 am

Time to get a second little run (1 mile) down to the start line.

7:20 am

At the start, National Anthem, Hoopla, Start...  at this point, we don't even know our leg order minus Emily who has claimed first gig.  We quickly work out that Stephanie will go second as she is racing with two teams, Sandra third, Minh fourth (he is running the first four legs, but the forth with the timing chip embedded in a baton)... that leaves the fifth and sixth legs.  I give Andy the choice, and agree to run the sixth leg as I am the relay noob.

7:30 am

The race starts and we wait...  the beginning of a long wait and getting to know a few of my teammates that I had never met before this day.  Good conversations, a lot of watching the race, and a lot of calculating when the next person should be waiting in the corral to take on the next leg of the race.

7:30 am to 10:25 am

A WHOLE LOT OF WAITING :)  and trying to keep myself loose.  At one point I even go out for a short run and find my TRPM crew coming in from their 20 miler that I started with them at 5:30 am. I am intending for this "race" to be a  workout like I mentioned before, but it is definitely the most segmented workout ever due to the lag factor.  I will have to remember next time to not start my "warm up" until closer to my leg (and to know what leg I am running the day before).  It is starting to get hotter, the sun is coming out and I am hoping the heat of September in Texas can hold itself off for one more hour.

10:38 am

I see Andy rolling in, jump out of the corral and grab the baton.  Workout time!  I innately turn on my Garmin.....  and then do something I have never done in a race before.  Switch my Garmin to time of day function so I couldn't see my pace or mileage....

The Race (or workout)

Consider this turning over a new leaf for me, or turning over my Garmin as a lot of runners call it. It was empowering.  My mind and my Garmin got me in trouble in Sioux Falls two weeks ago, so I wanted to try to eliminate this from the equation.  My new mantra for this race, "Take what the road will give you, and then steal a little more".

I felt great from Riverside to about the rise on Cesar Chavez coming past Lamar.  I was very tempted to switch my watch to pace mode and peek, but didn't give myself the chance.  My stomach started working on me as I made the stretch from Lamar to the bigger rise right before Mopac on CC.  The turn at the top just didn't want to seem to come fast enough.  I still noticed I was picking people off at this point, and I felt strong.  The stomach issue, and the heat, were very much bothering me at this point though. Thoughts in my head.... "It isn't an injury, it's discomfort and you have run through this before."

Normally, I would be looking at my watch and obsessing about how slow or fast I was going. Today, I was just trying to take what I could from the road and steal more.

Coming down the hill back into the city on CC, my legs started getting into a rhythm again.  I was struggling to control my breathing, but was making a concerted effort to bring my breath back to a steady rhythm in hopes that it would settle my stomach.  I was still picking off people at this point, and I had a few friendly "targets" that I know in front of me.  It is always good to have someone to chase.

When I hit the bridge coming across South 1st, I knew I was running slower.  My legs were feeling it.  I also knew, that I had to push that out of my mind.  Unlike every other race that had taken me across this bridge, I knew I had a lot longer to go to hit that finish line.  Not only did I have to make a right on Riverside and take the long stretch to the finish, I had to veer right at the finish, run past it, go down to Lamar again, and turn around back to the finish.  The race was not over in any sense of the word.  So I continued to control my breathing, and took the turn onto Riverside.

There is something about a crowd that gets you going again.  Cheering, random strange comments, people who have no clue, people who have every clue in the world. Either way, hitting Riverside got me going again.  Zoned and ready to roll for one last push.  I do have to admit, my one in race mistake was longing for the finish line as I passed it the first time, but I quickly put that out of my mind and got back to work.  Made the turn around at Lamar, and hit the turbo button.  

Pace?  Results?  Respectable, but it doesn't matter at this point.   I felt the pain, I harnessed it, and raced a smart race while listening to my body. I put the watch away and just ran a race for the first time in my life.  And, for the first time since Cap 10K (As my coach would like to say), "the race didn't happen to me".   I took what the road gave me, and stole back a little more than it has stolen from me in past races.

Takeaways/Wins/Thoughts

• Without the element of pace, your are afforded the opportunity to pay attention to the workings of your body (not thinking about what you should be running, but actually running).

• Not one person passed me in my time on course.  Talk about a confidence booster.  If I can pick off 32 runners on a 4 mile course, I will stop using my watch completely.

• The day/elements will affect your race.  Embrace them, but don't let them overrun you.  This was not my fastest day, but it was hot/humid and getting later in the day when I raced.  I could have easily remembered 50 degrees in Sioux Falls two weeks prior and let that affect me, but I had to remember I was in this here and now.

• Understand the logistics of a race before you do it.  This was not a true race, but I should have understood the "lag time" before I started my workout on course.  I was trying to balance staying loose and not putting too many miles on my legs before I started, and that might have been a loss for me.

The Beast

This past weekend, I traveled up to Sioux Falls with a few of my fabulous TRPM teammates to take on the Sioux Falls Half Marathon while they were taking a swing at BQs and PRs in the Full edition. After a day of mild shenanigans with the team to take our mind off the race (See the blogs of one Mandy Deen), I headed to the hotel and rested up for the night.   I had what I would consider an ambitious goal, and long story short, it didn't pan out for me the next day.  That's not the point of this though.  On the plane home from Sioux Falls post-race, I was re-reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall and something struck me (If you know this book, kudos... if you don't, buy the damn thing or I'll loan it to you).  In Chapter 19, a reference is made to ultrarunner Lisa Smith-Batchen, one of the most accomplished distance runners of all time.  She speaks of the exhaustion and fatigue of the later parts of races as "The Beast".  The text from Born to Run is as follows.

Lisa Smith-Batchen, the amazingly sunny and pixie-tailed ultrarunner from Idaho who trained through blizzards to win a six-day race in the Sahara, talks about exhaustion as if it's a playful pet.  "I love the Beast," she says.  "I actually look forward to the Beast showing up, because every time he does, I handle him better.  I get him more under control."  Once the Beast arrives, Lisa knows what she has to deal with and can get down to work.  And isn't that the reason she's running through the desert in the first place - to put her training to work?  To have a friendly little tussle with the Beast and show it who's boss?  You can't hate the Beast and expect to beat it; the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

I am by no means an ultrarunner or anywhere near the caliber of Lisa, but there is something to be said about the Beast.  If you have raced, you know what the Beast is, and it isn't necessarily the fatigue or exhaustion.  I think we all have our own Beast(s).  You don't know your Beast?  It could be the thing that you wrestle with in miles 20 through 26.2 of a Marathon.  Or in every damn bit of a 5K.  Maybe you have several Beasts working on you at once (mind, body, weather, combination)?  Maybe your Beast is a chameleon that can change colors and bite you in the butt when you least expect it.  Don't know your Beast(s)?  I applaud you, or I challenge you to dig a little deeper to find it. For now, I'll tell you about the Beasts I met in Sioux Falls.  My mind and my anger.

This wasn't intended to be much of a progressive race.  That is, unless I was ready and willing to take my pace much lower than intended race pace as I was starting right around my goal pace.  But what could go wrong?  Weather was perfect, course was perfect (Mistake number 1, respect the course, don't assume), and I was confident.  Mile 1 through 5, perfect.  It couldn't have been better and I was clicking off miles at race pace or slightly under.  I tucked in with a group of Collegiate XC runners from Gillette College in Wyoming and a few locals that were a part of the 605 Running Crew out of Sioux Falls.   I let them lead the way to block the wind and keep the pace as they were right around where I wanted to be (one of the smarter things I did all day).  

Then, things went a bit south on me.  Enter mile 6 and enter the Beast called Josh's mind.  Too much thinking can be a bad thing kids, especially if you aren't thinking straight. My mind was about to get as crooked as it could.  I wasn't intending to do a progressive run and the crew I had been latching onto was going to start cranking down significantly.  I had been listening to them discuss this plan and started playing with the idea myself, giving myself a few scenarios.  GREEDY!  Instead of listening to my heart and my race plan, my mind got greedy and way too involved...  here's a 5 second snapshot what my thought process looked like before things went south....

"You've banked a good 40 seconds and are feeling good, so why not go with these guys (Mistake 2, Never bank time, bank energy... Allison Macsas, I could hear you preaching to me) .... you're past the hard part of the course, why not? (Mistake 3, see mistake number 1 again, always respect the course)... you recovered on those early slow climbs really well... you've raced and trained on harder courses (Mistake 4 once again, see 1 and 3, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS respect the damn course)... If you have a bad mile 6, you can always back off the pace above your race goal and recover to make time up later (Mistake 5, now I am thinking way too much and I've given myself Plan B if I fuck up mile 6.  There should be no Plan B or out unless I know I am injured)....

Licking my Chops and Being Greedy 

So with all of these thoughts looping in my mind throughout mile 6, I started seeing the group pulling away from me.  I then realized that I was on the Sioux Falls equivalent of Austin, Texas' very own Duval St.  You know? That slow, deceiving climb over about 3 miles? To add to the slow mind misery, I start seeing my time bank fading, my energy going down, legs feeling lead like and worst of all the looping thought process is getting perpetually worse.  This leads to round two of thoughts over a much longer period of time (miles 7 through 8 in the last two miles of my climb)....

"Well so much for a sub-1:30, might as well back the pace off and just PR (Mistake 6, I have COMPLETELY abandoned Plan A and started relying on my watch when I should have said "screw the watch" at this point and stuck with #JFR)...  my legs are feeling tired.  Was it my nutrition?  Was it my hydration?  Did I go out too fast? Why do my legs feel like lead?  How could I be so stupid to put myself in this position?  This is so embarrassing! (Mistake 7, Why are you thinking about the inconsequential at this point, what's done is done, #JFR)

Those 3 short miles (6 through 8), were nothing more than me over focusing on why my race was going wrong rather than finding a way to embrace the Beast that was my mind. I was convinced I was wasting an opportunity on a race I had flown a 1000 miles for. I was letting the Beast punch me right in the face and I knew it.  I didn't have to love the Beast at this point, I just needed to find a way to control and tame it.  Racing isn't fun at times.  In fact it is never really fun, but I had just made it more of a grind than it needed to be.  I'm not going to bore you with the details.  Miles 9 and 10 were no different.  More mind minutia and convincing myself that I had fucked up.

Then, something happened coming down the bike path when mile 10 turned to 11.  I was still convincing myself what a crappy race I was having and how much time I had given up when I got passed by a smiling racer who chirped, "Good Job, only 5K left".  At the moment, I thought that was the last thing I needed to hear.  It pissed me off beyond belief.  You're going to pass me and tell me what a good job I am doing?  How dare you?  Retrospectively, however, I wish I could have found her and thanked her after the race, because she had brought out another Beast of mine that I am much more experienced with controlling... Anger. Unlike the mind Beast that overtook me mid-race, I embraced my anger Beast and channeled it like it was an old friend.  There was only one thought in my mind that entire last 5K.  Catch her if you can, and anyone else along the way.  Simple thoughts, simple goals, good results in those last 3 miles because I knew my Beast, and used it to my advantage.  My last last 5K just was just over my original intended race pace.  There was no pain, no extra thought, just an end goal.  Did I break 1:30?  Nah.  Did I PR?  Nope.  But I channeled and embraced one of my Beasts.  I'll call that a win.

Mile 11 Water Stop ... From What I Can Remember... I have dropped the mind Beast and Channeled the anger Beast

I still have a lot of work to do to locate my race Beasts and find out what my relationships are with them.  In fact, I don't have to love them like Lisa Smith-Batchen does. To each their own! I just have to try to understand them, nurture them when I can, and respect them every chance I get.  Love may or may not come in time.  There is no clear answer for any of us trying to take control of the one or many things that haunt us during the race. I think we just need to know that no matter what we do, Beasts are always going to be there.  We just need to find a way to fine tune our relationship with them.