Here are the stats:
- 1:54:07 official finishing time
- 8:42 minutes per mile pace
- 57th out of 207 women in my age group (35-40)
This isn’t exactly what I was hoping this race would tell me.
Regarding effort, I can say I definitely raced this event, and gave it what I had to give (which doesn’t seem like that much, now that I have crossed the finish line and taken a nap). Even though I tried to hold back during the first eight miles, that earlier pace was only a few seconds slower than what I averaged overall. Thus, the Bronx Half-Marathon ended up a kind of slower-than-usual pace run (since I run my pace runs at 8:15), rather than my typical negative-split race timing.
Body checks revealed that my knees didn’t hurt me like I thought they would have (that pain really was due to my dead sneakers thank god), but my hamstrings were achy the entire race. At one point, I felt so beleaguered by the wind, I found a big guy (chubby, broad shoulders, 6′ tall) and drafted him for about a mile along the Grand Concourse. I’d never done that before in a race. The last mile, when I was trying to Go, my hips were basically like, “You’re joking, right? Good one!” When Coach Ramon spotted me with half a mile to go, his demeanor totally changed from Big Cheer Machine to Soft Encouraging One. Clearly I was crumbling, because he told me quietly “Shoulders Up, Relax, Chin Up, Come On.” He also said my name like five times–I don’ t know if he did it on purpose but it is a huge mental boost to simply be called by your name. I feel badly that he has seen me racing so poorly.
Mentally, I’ve been in a dark place for days. I’m a bit overwhelmed by work and personal obligations, am feeling unsure in a few friendships, and am caught in this rut where I am behind in everything. Skipping my 8-mile training run yesterday* just added to that mild sense of self-disgust that’s been icing my cake all week. So, I wasn’t looking forward to today’s race, and while it’s unquantifiable, I wonder just how much my morose attitude may have slowed me down.
I certainly wasn’t expecting to PR , I know my fitness isn’t at 1:48:50 yet. I thought I’d be able to finish within a 10-second window around my second-best time of 1:53:34; it frustrates me that I didn’t (it feels sloppy). I did beat my time for the course from last year (2:12:31) but really: it’s sad to cheer over that. The one encouraging detail here is this: when I ran my 1:53:34 time, I was seven weeks out from the NYC Marathon, which means I had four more weeks of training under my belt than I do now.
Nevertheless, the bottom line is that I didn’t win an encouraging result for myself . (When I got home, Husband hugged me and sweetly said, “You can’t win every race,” which made me laugh.) This makes me stop and think that I’ll need to reevaluate my goals for London, and start getting used to the idea that a Boston Qualifying Time (3:45, 8:32 pace) may not be within reach this season. Recently, a friend pointedly reminded me I need to get 30 seconds faster per mile over my marathon PR to BQ; maybe I have set an arrogant goal. The way my body hasn’t been recovering between hard workouts (thus all my discomfort during today’s race) is a little more proof towards my suspicion that I’m a 1-Marathon-a-Year kind of girl, and I’m asking a lot of my joints and muscles to train and race again so “soon” after New York. (I’ve been pushing away the thought for weeks that it may be best to defer my entry to the New York City Marathon this year, as much as it would break my heart to not share that experience with Brother.)
I still have 11 weeks left of training; 9 before I begin to taper. Last season, my two half-marathons gave me the hard data I needed to dare to dream of a sub-4 marathon time. Staten Island was 3 weeks out from NYC, which forced me into a 3-week taper but also led to another PR. Should I run a second half this season? Will two halves make a whole? Going with this new attitude of setting realistic goals, will racing 13.1 on my last step-back weekend (3/28-3/29) be the best way for me to predict of what I’ll actually be capable on race day, rather than of what I’d like to be capable?
*Why did I skip this workout? My knees were hurting, badly. I was completely enervated. I had obligations, appointments, and chores that were non-negotiable and that had to be done within specific windows of time. But, mostly, I was hung over from a long Friday evening happy hour during which myself and a hot Australian blond finished three bottles of wine. Gentlemen, trust me, if she was leaning towards you saying, “Another?” you wouldn’t have said no, either.
Pigtails Flying 
As Freud might have said, “sometimes a crappy race is just a crappy race.” You have to trust your training.
HMs can be tough because so much of a race is in the mind. So if the head’s not in it, it becomes a very long race indeed. Running can be an escape from the outside world but sometimes you have to tell yourself that whatever else is going on is not going to mess up a run.
Hm… I kinda felt like I was reading my own race report here. This week has really been a struggle for me too. And I also found myself wondering how big of an impact my apathy towards today’s race had on my time. Sorry to hear that the race wasn’t what you’d hoped it would be.
I don’t think your goal to qualify for Boston is at all arrogant. You’ve put in the miles and now you just have to go claim what’s yours. And, even if it was arrogant, what’s wrong with a little arrogance now and again? 🙂
Joe you are totally right. At Mile 12 I thought, Will this race ever effing end??” Running has not felt like an escape to me this week; it’s felt like another reminder of how I’m not who I expect myself to be and that SUCKS.
Cowboy, I hear you but sometimes it’s about more than putting in the miles. There are so many variables, and in the marathon, many things that are out of your control. But, I hope to use my remainning 11 weeks of training to their fullest, so we’ll see how close to 3:45 I can actually get.
I’m with Joe. You may just have had an off day (and when that happens both in your body and in your mind, that’s really an off day.)
Also, I don’t know what it was like in the Bronx yesterday, but it was insanely windy in southern Connecticut. You really do need to take the wind factor into account when evaluating how you did yesterday, as well as the impact of other hard running you did during the week.
11 weeks is still a long time to get ready and make improvements. Don’t throw in the towel just yet.
Thanks lady. It was windy, especially along the Grand Concourse, but not quite as windy as during my last pace run. And I don’t believe I’ve thrown in the towel, I’m just trying to recalibrate, be realistic and calm down, I guess. Your words mean a lot to me, though.
the wind was terrible! i thought of drafting came across my mind but i couldnt find a chubby dude!
I agree…11 weeks is a long long time away! I’m training for Boston (also 11 weeks away) and haven’t even done an 18 or 20 miler yet! So you have time. It was a hilly course, and very windy, so don’t overthink and overanalyze your result.
My motto that I repeat to myself after very disappointing race is “You’re never as fast as you think after a great race and you’re never as slow as after a bad one either.
Best of luck in the rest of your training.
TK, though I read your blog regularly, I don’t usually comment. But I could relate intimately to your emotions today–coming off a season of PRs, I hit a moment in my training when everything just wasn’t clicking like it was supposed to.
I hated it. And I questioned every decision I was making in my training.
But hey, we run because we love it, even when it doesn’t love us back. Stick with it. Your mojo’s out there, waiting for you to find your way back to it.
You know you will. One day, the fog will lift off that bridge just the way you like, the sun will reflect off the windows just right, and that 8:30 pace will feel like nothing . . .
Seriously people, love how none of you have blown smoke up my ass and said “Oh no really you ran a great race.” And I appreciate your empathy most of all.
Zookeeper, you’re right, I was a little spoiled by a year of PR’s. I had a feeling I was going to stall this year… we’ll see if I can give myself a kick start over the next 11 weeks.
Just to give a quick update regarding Coach Ramon… I saw him today at a TNT recruting lunch, and after I thanked him for his Mile 13 coaching, he gave me a hug, said, “Yeah, I’ve seen you looking better” and gave a laugh. Subtle, but again, no smoke-blowing. He also offered that perhaps I had a tough race because I hadn’t tapered. Hhmm.
cough*cough*blowsmoke*cough*smoke*cough
TK, you had a pretty good race all things considered.
[…] through the Hassidic neighborhood, Hipsterland is raucous.” the weather conditions in the 2009 Bronx Half-Marathon: “The wind was strong enough to make drafting a legitimate strategy.” his running […]
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