It's been interesting to race with* Eric (facelessghost) over the past few months. I've been running off and on (mostly off but with occasional spurts of on) for a few years and he pretty much just started running in January, but he's consistently among the fastest runners and I'm almost always in the bottom half. He keeps explaining that he's been building his fitness level for years, and that improvement takes time, but sometimes it's hard to not feel like I'll always be slow. I think yesterday's race helped me understand more about improvement and growth, though. It was the farthest I've run by about three miles,** and I hadn't had many long runs in the previous few weeks. The beginning was familiar; I knew I was going to hate it until about 3 miles in, and I knew that the aches and pains that came after about 6 miles would go away.*** And at about 12 miles I even thought that an extra post-race jog sounded like a nice idea. But a little while later it kind of stopped being fun. There was a lot of downhill in the race, and I wasn't used to the pounding (all of my long runs have been on flat road or trails with a lot of elevation gain to even out the loss). I thought about walking,**** but I realized that that was the point where, if I continued, I would begin to get stronger. I'm not really a push-my-limits kind of girl; I like to do things that I'm good at, and I like to stay at a level where I'm comfortable. It *did* completely suck to keep going, and I really hated the last 2.5 miles. A lot. But doing it would make it easier the next time, and pushing through the fear (of pain or discomfort or whatever) helped me to be confident that I could go that far (and farther) again. It also helped me to appreciate the example Eric and other runners here on the blog set. I hope that I can continue to feel that appreciation and confidence instead of just feeling slow when I see people's race times. :) Oh - and the race was great. I wish there had been more people; about 45 people ran the 50k, and 12 people (7 men and 5 women*****) ran the 30k. The two most important things to me - aid stations and potties - were plentiful throughout, and the organizers were fun and helpful. The goodie bags included gels, a useful (for people who live in St. George) coupon book, and some samples, and the tech shirts were cute (but not un-manly...). Eric got a big trophy (that he's kind of embarrassed about :) ), and the finisher medals are neat. We're planning on going back next year, and I hope more people will have the chance to run the beautiful course. http://www.redmountain50k.com
*And by "with" I mean that we start at the same time and he waits for me at the finish line. **It was supposed to be only 2.6 miles farther, but the race was 19.1 instead of 18.6. I'm glad I didn't know until after that it was farther than I had signed up for. ***Because of an upcoming (minor) surgery, this was maybe the first long-ish race I've run without ibuprofen. Turns out forgoing the pain reliever was no big deal. (I'm still reluctant to skip the pre-race swig of pepto, though.) ****I don't think there's anything wrong with walking during a race; it just wasn't consistent with my goal for the day. *****(This explains my 2nd place finish.)
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