Is the glass half-full, or 7 seconds empty?
I got up yesterday morning to begin my 2009 racing season in the cold and wet of downtown Hamilton, Ontario. The Bay and Back 5k was initially going to be my opportunity to claim a sub-20 min 5k milestone that I narrowly missed the previous Fall by 32 seconds. Since that race in October, I kept assuring myself that this was my very first race and that I has not been running for more than six months prior to the event and that I should be proud of my accomplishment. Perhaps I’m too much of a perfectionist, because somehow I felt that I could have ran a little bit harder and trained a little bit smarter. There were far too many ‘little mistakes’ that I swore I wouldn’t be making this time around.
Beginning on Monday, January 5th of this year I jumped head first into a 12 week training program with the will and determination to overcome those 32 seconds. From the first few weeks I was feeling fast and strong and was seriously thinking about the 19 min barrier as a possibilty. "Just stick to the program and you’ll do it," I told myself.
I’ve heard that the easiest way to make the Gods laugh is to make a plan. In my case things began to unravel about 6 weeks to go before the race with work and personal issues getting in the way of training, sleep and trying to fit in half-decent eating habits. Then came the injuries, and the colds, and more injuries. On top of all that, when the weather a few days ago began to look promising I found out that the only rain all weekend would be on the morning I had to race -not that weather is an excuse, but I felt that fate was not on my side and this simply added to the frustration.
So at 9:45 on Sunday I limped into the middle of the pack of 1588 other runners (repeating my earlier mistake of not getting to the start line early enough) and went all out with only the lowered expectation of just finishing a distance I run several days a week without issue.
I wheezed across the finish line at a time of 20:07 placing 63rd overall.
I should have left feeling thankful that I wasn’t scraped off the road by a paramedic, and managed to set a personal record in the process. Instead I left feeling, "now, if I had only taken that one corner sharper and tackled the second hill a little harder, I could have finished in under…"
June 8, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Your beating yourself up over 7 seconds???? Focus on the fact that you gave it all you had. THat you got a PB even with the injuries, work issues and family stuff. THat you are fit enough to even run 5kms not only at the speed you were travelling at. I’m like you I beat my self up about… could have gone harder on the hill etc. I think the trick is to be in the moment when we run. Don’t lose your focus, its hard to sustain for 20 mins or in my case 25. Stay in the moment and race to your plan. Then you can’t question or what if? yourself afterwards. You did the best you could on the day. Tomorrow you will make a new plan and kick it come next race.
And fingers crossed we get a tail wind on the day lol. sammi Take Care