Miles, Mayhem, and Other Stuff That Happned
Hi Everyone! I'm sure you missed my posting as much as I have-you likely haven't, but that's okay!
After a few months of simply riding the grind of training, practicing, and everything in between I thought I'd throw some more content up here, but in a different location as I went ahead and let the old domain go and decided to just keep it simple here. We'll start today with a little story and what I took from the experience. Enjoy.
Training's going well. I'm currently on a steady routine of 6 days per week with a faster day consisting of timed intervals, what I call "Faster Friday's", and mileage hovering from 40-50ish. Nothing really special or different from what I usually do, minus the mandatory hip stability exercises that get a lot more attention as I continue to do this stuff. I can't say there is too much that I would change right now on that end except for continuing to gain some confidence in my body and ability, and that comes with taking things one workout or experience at a time. I've put in a couple races. One went well and the other, well, read on......
Now about that DNF...
So it finally happened. After fortunately being one of the few athletes I know who has never had this experience, I had my day a little over a week ago at the Rice Invitational XC Meet. Instead of running the open, I had the opportunity to get WAY out of my comfort zone and race some really fast girls. Oh and most of them were younger than me, like a lot younger. Given how much I love the cross country format and have had some relative success so far in it, I was ready to see if I could hang with the college girls and the handful of unattacheds like myself.
Warmup felt pretty good, I did my usual heavy hydrating (cuz I need to here in Houston), jogging, and drills I've done dozens of times before. Put my spikes on, and fought off the thoughts that I didn't belong out there. I actually wasn't that anxious at all, more like just apprehensive to begin the event. Gun goes off and I'm in a sea of matching singlets. I was proudly sporting my 'Bayou City Elite' singlet for the first time and it was already drenched after the first of 3 loops of the course. Just a few minutes into the race I realized that something was off; unfortunately this particular feeling is familiar. It was that rough feeling analogous to breathing through a straw-at first I just thought it was the intense humidity and 80+ degree temps on the course or blowing up, but it was more than that-I couldn't fill or empty my lungs completely. Not good when you're trying to maintain your position in a fast race.
It was after the second loop that I started to feel lightheaded and made the decision to step off the course The feeling became more scary than uncomfortable and wasn't improving. I simply hunched over outside the flags, waited to get some air and fought off the negative thoughts of "you DNF'ed a 4k? You really do suck", and "way to overestimate yourself", etc. Once I could breath the rational side took over and I simply walked slowly over to Coach Doug, told him what happened, crumpled up my bib and threw it away, and gave myself 30 mins or so to decompress. In a way it was almost anticlimactic, once I calmed down, I recall thinking "this is it"? I guess I anticipated this being more upsetting and embarrassing than it actually was.
Oddly enough, this experience didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. There are several reasons for this. First, I know I have a diagnosed medical condition and forgot to take the inhaler per-race. Lately it has been more under control, but fresh cut grass and humidity after rain put it over the edge. It's very unfair for myself to ruminate over something that has nothing to do with my ability or mental toughness. I also had a race where I felt incredibly strong just two weeks prior; to me that was an indication that I am fit and relatively fast.
Lastly, maybe running is gaining a more healthy place in my life. Sure it was disappointing, but I think I was able to turn it around pretty quickly. It's so important to be fair and understanding of yourself and your performances. To paraphrase Lauren Fleshman, "you can train hard and expect success....but in the end, you get what you get". Harsh? Perhaps. Realistic? Absolutely. We only have so much control, but we are best to focus on the factors we do have influence on. Maybe that was the lesson from this unfortunate race experience.
So the takeaways from this? As always, keeping the race results as far away from my identity and self-worth as possible. This is a challenge for me, but necessary to work it. Also, our interpretation of things is everything. It can be a disaster or just 'one of those things'. It's up to us.
I followed up this bad experience with a couple really easy days to get the soreness out of my chest and bronchial tubes (yep those hurt!) and executed a quality fast day and re-did a 4k workout with hills. Once everything stabilizes, sometimes we just have to recover, reframe, and simply keep going.
After a few months of simply riding the grind of training, practicing, and everything in between I thought I'd throw some more content up here, but in a different location as I went ahead and let the old domain go and decided to just keep it simple here. We'll start today with a little story and what I took from the experience. Enjoy.
Training's going well. I'm currently on a steady routine of 6 days per week with a faster day consisting of timed intervals, what I call "Faster Friday's", and mileage hovering from 40-50ish. Nothing really special or different from what I usually do, minus the mandatory hip stability exercises that get a lot more attention as I continue to do this stuff. I can't say there is too much that I would change right now on that end except for continuing to gain some confidence in my body and ability, and that comes with taking things one workout or experience at a time. I've put in a couple races. One went well and the other, well, read on......
Now about that DNF...
So it finally happened. After fortunately being one of the few athletes I know who has never had this experience, I had my day a little over a week ago at the Rice Invitational XC Meet. Instead of running the open, I had the opportunity to get WAY out of my comfort zone and race some really fast girls. Oh and most of them were younger than me, like a lot younger. Given how much I love the cross country format and have had some relative success so far in it, I was ready to see if I could hang with the college girls and the handful of unattacheds like myself.
Warmup felt pretty good, I did my usual heavy hydrating (cuz I need to here in Houston), jogging, and drills I've done dozens of times before. Put my spikes on, and fought off the thoughts that I didn't belong out there. I actually wasn't that anxious at all, more like just apprehensive to begin the event. Gun goes off and I'm in a sea of matching singlets. I was proudly sporting my 'Bayou City Elite' singlet for the first time and it was already drenched after the first of 3 loops of the course. Just a few minutes into the race I realized that something was off; unfortunately this particular feeling is familiar. It was that rough feeling analogous to breathing through a straw-at first I just thought it was the intense humidity and 80+ degree temps on the course or blowing up, but it was more than that-I couldn't fill or empty my lungs completely. Not good when you're trying to maintain your position in a fast race.
It was after the second loop that I started to feel lightheaded and made the decision to step off the course The feeling became more scary than uncomfortable and wasn't improving. I simply hunched over outside the flags, waited to get some air and fought off the negative thoughts of "you DNF'ed a 4k? You really do suck", and "way to overestimate yourself", etc. Once I could breath the rational side took over and I simply walked slowly over to Coach Doug, told him what happened, crumpled up my bib and threw it away, and gave myself 30 mins or so to decompress. In a way it was almost anticlimactic, once I calmed down, I recall thinking "this is it"? I guess I anticipated this being more upsetting and embarrassing than it actually was.
Oddly enough, this experience didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. There are several reasons for this. First, I know I have a diagnosed medical condition and forgot to take the inhaler per-race. Lately it has been more under control, but fresh cut grass and humidity after rain put it over the edge. It's very unfair for myself to ruminate over something that has nothing to do with my ability or mental toughness. I also had a race where I felt incredibly strong just two weeks prior; to me that was an indication that I am fit and relatively fast.
Lastly, maybe running is gaining a more healthy place in my life. Sure it was disappointing, but I think I was able to turn it around pretty quickly. It's so important to be fair and understanding of yourself and your performances. To paraphrase Lauren Fleshman, "you can train hard and expect success....but in the end, you get what you get". Harsh? Perhaps. Realistic? Absolutely. We only have so much control, but we are best to focus on the factors we do have influence on. Maybe that was the lesson from this unfortunate race experience.
So the takeaways from this? As always, keeping the race results as far away from my identity and self-worth as possible. This is a challenge for me, but necessary to work it. Also, our interpretation of things is everything. It can be a disaster or just 'one of those things'. It's up to us.
I followed up this bad experience with a couple really easy days to get the soreness out of my chest and bronchial tubes (yep those hurt!) and executed a quality fast day and re-did a 4k workout with hills. Once everything stabilizes, sometimes we just have to recover, reframe, and simply keep going.
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