It's my belief that there's just a certain feeling that comes over you whenever you're running in a race. It's a combination of excitement, competitiveness, and adrenaline mostly. I hypothesize that it comes from being around other like-minded individuals as your training and hard work culminates when you put forth your best physical, mental, and emotional effort to see just where you stand, both against your prior self and against others. I experienced that again today for the first time in a long time!
Being a sunny, hot and humid day in August—I sweated—a lot! However, there's simply no way I'd trade the feeling I received from competing in this race. The event I competed in was the 15K distance of the On The Rocks Trail Run at Rocky Ridge Park in York, PA. It's a race that I've run several times before and one of the races I look forward to every year. While I ran what I'll call a "somewhat hard effort" of the 10K distance of this race last year, along with a few select others last year, it's difficult to call any of them truly racing. So when that competitive fire found me again today for the first time in around two years, it was like finding and reconnecting with an old best friend.
My two previous posts in this blog discuss why my running took a backseat and my difficulties with returning to running. The content of those posts is what made today have importance to me. And truthfully I didn't set out to really race this event. What this event was suppose to do was serve as an assessment of my fitness and readiness for a just as hard 25K event I have coming up in 6 weeks. This was going to be the closest thing to that 25K and provide more feedback for me than any amount of training runs. Of course I get to compete in a quality race that I love as a bonus!
I don't actually know what my finish time was for this race. My best guess is a finish time somewhere between 1hr 30min and 1hr 40min—I'll find out when they post race results but as of this writing they weren't posted. The reason I don't know my finish time is I forgot my watch so I ran the entire race just based on how I felt. When the hills were too much and reduced me to power hiking, that's what I did. I wasn't alone in doing this, and even if I was, I wouldn't have been ashamed. From past experience, I think the power hiking actually saves me energy at spots on uphill sections. During the race there was one spot that was a long uphill, and while I was power hiking, I actually gained ground on a runner in front of me while he was still doing his slow running. Soon I passed him and I didn't feel too bad at the top of the hill. I know had I attempted to run the entire hill I would have stressed myself to the point of fatigue from a cardiovascular viewpoint and lack being able to recover nearly as fast and pick up my pace again.
Going back to my point about forgetting my watch, I think that probably helped me today. Instead of continually watching my pace and mile splits, I was back to the basics and doing something that myself and many other runners should probably do more often. Running on how I feel forced me to assess both my body and my mind. And it was the information that I got from doing this that is essentially what I was after in the first place—learning how I felt on uphills and on flats and near the end of the race. It is all information that I can apply both in upcoming training runs and my 25K. Sure I don't have my mile splits, but in reality, it's the story behind those mile splits that really tells why each of them are what they are. So while forgetting my watch initially stressed me out, instead I tried an alternate approach that was really closer to what I needed to do anyway.
I was glad I felt good today and that this race went well for me. Believe me, this was by no means an easy race! What felt best was that I didn't feel intimidated by the course at any point. Even with knowing this race would end with a long uphill climb, I didn't feel like that section wore me out like it has in the past. Yes, it was difficult and again reduced me to hiking but I never felt the intensity of tiredness like I have in the race previously. I'm hoping that was the result of the hill work I did in my training! I was concerned prior to the race about how today was going to go. The longest training run I did was right around 8 miles so I barely got in the proper training. Secondly, for whatever reason, I didn't sleep well this past week and have been increasingly tired despite purposeful efforts to get sufficient sleep.
I think that's why everything coming together today has surprised me. It's been so long since I truly raced, and with likely being slightly undertrained, I am surprised this race went so well. A 14th place finish is definitely good enough for me! I think about 40–50 runners ran this distance judging from the tags on the finishing board at the finish line.
Going forward I know that I still have work to do for my upcoming 25K in the name of increasing my distance and continued work on hills. With today's race letting me know that I still can be competitive, I know that have indeed increased my fitness and endurance level since once again making running a priority. Had this race proved to set me in my place and fatigue me to the point of letting doubt creep into me, I would have really had to reassess how I was going to pull off this 25K in 6 weeks. However, with that thought now erased, I can move forward with at least moderate ease and continue hitting the trails and still have fun while out on them instead of getting so into my training that I don't even get to enjoy the nature that's around me. And that's what I really love when I'm out there, getting in tune with nature and marveling at what it can provide to all of us!
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