Prepare Yourself

(3 of 3)



with Liz, German, Kirubel, and Kelly

I was SO dang sore.  I knew I’d be in a rough situation when I was getting sore DURING the last half mile of Gasparilla! After a Tuesday shakeout, I did a light workout on Wednesday and scheduled hilly bridge repeats for not just a couple days later, but the next week.  I ran the bridge repeats with ML who was also looking to race the Gate River Run and PR.   We pushed it on the uphills and it was super windy from the west.  At this point the Gate River Run 15K wasn’t too far away.  Just 3 more days!  The day before the race, I got together with my high school friend OS and we ran through UNF’s trails.  I know myself well enough at this point.  If I hadn’t scheduled both sessions, I am certain I wouldn’t have done either big run.  The 8miles worth of bridge repeats would  have been a basic 4mi run in my neighborhood.  The 5mi trail run would have either been a basic 3mi shuffle or a sleep-in with the idea of 'rest' being rationalized.  But I prepared, scheduled them, and did them.  Happily.

 

The race began.  When I got to the Hart Bridge (the Green Monster) at roughly mile 8, I saw three girls ahead of me.  I knew that I could get the first girl and I loved feeling the adrenaline to fight.  It wasn’t a hard pass, but I made sure to jump on it. Then came the second girl I passed and I was gaining mental momentum.  It got windy and I was maybe half way up the bridge.  I looked ahead and saw the third girl.  She was a ways up.  I attempted a couple quick calculations.  Math calculations get significantly harder deep into a race.  My watch was all out of whack and the race clocks were set for the overall field, not the women’s elite wave.  I looked ahead and figured that I needed to beat that girl if I wanted to get under 58:00.  I’d run 58:12 at Gasparilla and everyone conceded that Gate was slower.  = It’s hotter at Gate, twists through neighborhoods, and contains two bridges.   Still, I wanted to break 58 for me.  For some reason I was sure I had to beat the girl near the top of the bridge to do so.   As soon as I was getting close, the Green Monster got to her and she broke.  She was walking.  No way in hell was I letting someone who was walking beat me.  No way.  I was happy to get feisty.  I was closing in on her and she started running again.  Race was on!  Fight was on!  I peeked over at her as I passed and I realized by her pink singlet that she lives in Jacksonville and runs for the local running store, 1^st Place Sports.  I love that place, but no way was she going to beat me.  I’d worked hard up the bridge and had to defend my position by running aggressively downhill and getting a little ugly over the last two minutes.  It worked and I ran 57:48!  I finished 41^st or 42^nd and you could argue I wasn’t in the fight.  I'd argue I was in my own little fight and I proved to myself how important preparation is for me.  The little bit of preparation I did between the Gasparilla 15K and the Gate 15K wasn’t a lot, but it did help me pull on many past deeper experiences of being feisty, being compelled, and feeling competitive.  It was so good to be in the fight!

Push Yourself

     Pushing Myself (2 of 3)

The next two posts in this 3-part series focus on the single idea of ‘Pushing Myself’ that played out two different ways between the Gasparilla 15K and Gate River Run 15K.  Thankfully, the better scenario plays itself out later in the series.  I learned from the poor preparation and made a good adjustment! 

At the end of February I squeezed in the Gasparilla 15K.  My calendar of events didn’t fully align with the Gasparilla 15K, but I wanted to give it a ‘go’ and put myself on the line for the straight-forward challenge.  I couldn’t bow-out because I wasn’t fully prepared.  Not these days.  Might as well run hard, push myself, and see what I could do --plus it’s such a great local race with such great people and I've got history with it!

1993 - Susan was the director then and still is now!

I ran a bit better than I suspected, but we all know that when the gun goes off, I’m going to go hard.  I could only go so hard due to fitness.  Gasparilla 15K = Flat out & back race.  I ran 6:16s over the first half/6:15s over the second half.  Pretty dang good execution.  Controlled, but hard.  I ran the first 7.5 or so miles side-by-side with EW.  (I wrote about EW in my initial post  about the Disney Marathon).

Thanks, MarathonFoto!

So—to get to it: What stuck out is that when EW took off with about 1.5 miles to go, I couldn’t respond/ I couldn’t match it.  It wasn’t just physical.  Much of it was, yes; however, I had no recent experience in pushing myself.  I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t have the drive, I didn’t feel compelled, I lacked practice.  I had nothing to pull from for motivation or need.  I hadn’t worked for it.  She got away from me tenth-by-tenth and I had no fight.   I enjoyed running a good hard race, but I didn’t enjoy not being in the fight!

Afterwards I reflected and figured Gasparilla would be a good practice and wake-up call before the Gate River Run 15K two weeks later in March.  I recognized I needed to run and practice pushing myself before the Gate River Run.  I wasn’t going to line up in my hometown… in the women’s elite crowd…wearing New Balance head-to-toe… and not be significantly more aggressive. A couple days later came the hilly bridge repeats late on a windy morning.