Oh Snap! It hit me today that the Dirt Monster is this Saturday! For some reason I was thinking it was next weekend. Well....hmmm....Since I can't really do any more "damage" to the neuroma by running on it and it's just painful, I'm going to "run" the Dirt Monster even if it means I limp/walk most of it. I've waited a year to run it and I'm not letting a couple of angry nerves stop me. The good thing about this situation is that I don't have to worry about how I'd handle running with a couple of people from the ward I invited (before I had my setback) to run it with me. I talked to one of them last night and he thought I was sandbagging when I told him I hadn't run in 3 weeks. He kept pushing so I had to give in and tell him I've put in 2-3 miles on the treadmill...total...per week...the last couple of weeks. I think he smells blood. :-) I'm not sure if the other guy is planning on it or not. Before my setback, I had anxiety not knowing how to handle running with these guys. I am fairly certain I'm faster than the other two, but we've never run together before and neither are racers, per se. I didn't want to just shoot off the line and say see ya at the finish, but I also wanted to be sure to challenge myself and see how well I could do on the course with it being my first trail race - and a race I knew I'd be planning to do every year. I thought maybe I'd hang with them for a mile or so and assess how they were doing in relation to how I was feeling. Maybe I'd be OK with the pace and we'd stick together. But what if it wasn't? Then what? I know for races where there have been other runners from work there, we'd chat for a bit before the race then we'd take our relative places in the sea of runners (them up front, me somewhere behind :-) waiting for the start. I had no problem with them not running it with me because I knew they were a ton faster and had a chance at placing, winning, or whatever. But in this case, this is a small, intimate race - probably 50-75 runners so we'll all be starting as a group.
Not that I have to worry about it now since the tables may have turned (lol), but how is this "properly" handled? When it's more of a charity/fun run and you've invited people to "run it with you," is it still every man/woman for themselves? I have no problem letting both of them nip me at the finish since, heck, even with 100 runners and the 10 year age groups, there's a good chance one of us will place in our AG and it would make me happy to see either of them get the honor. lol
Without having done any real trail running, I'm not sure how my road race pace would equate to a trail pace anyways. Just curious how others handle this. Both guys are totally cool and I know would have no problem if I were to take off and meet them at the finish. (Many words means I've obviously thought a lot about this and care way too much about what these other two guys will think)
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