Thursday, October 11, 2012

RnR SJ Race Recap

I still have a bit of a wedgie about my performance at the RnR on Sunday. I've been stewing over my race the last few days and will chalk it up to this:

1. I was mentally lazy the last 5K
2. I got warm/sun in face half the race (bad excuse from a Phoenician)
3. I wasn't rested (traveling the day before isn't ideal + crappy night's sleep)
4. I was hungry

My biggest issue really....I just need to try harder. I need to make it hurt, push myself. And that means DURING training and DURING the race. Why put all these miles on my legs and then not see improvement? All of this stuff was purely "me".

Yes, I beat my PR from February by seconds, (1:53:41 vs. 1:53:12) but I have put in a lot of miles since then and I should be making strides (pun intended) in my goal times.

But I'm over it now and it's time to move on. To work harder. Maybe I need to run less miles and the ones I do run I need to really push myself on? Ideas anyone? I am happy I can do this, to run and all that jazz....but let's face it, we all want to be better for ourselves. I do anyway.

The race itself was well organized as all RnR's are. Fast and efficient expo, I picked up and my packet and bailed so I can't say how it was from that standpoint. My biggest beef with RnR...not an option to get your bib ANY other way but picking it up. We had to drive to San Jose twice and that could have been avoided if they had a paid option to mail your shit. 

The race start was uneventful...I freaked out a tiny bit when I saw I was in Corral #3 and super close to the start line. I have only ever run the RnR in Phoenix and I was in Corral #7, which was a HUGE corral for a HUGE race. Not that any of this matters. J-Johns were plentiful and it was kind of cold so I stripped my jacket off and handed it Gio right before the gun went off. 


The course was boring and fairly quiet (except all the cute and peppy cheerleaders lining the course) and my splits were pretty good until I hit mile 10 and then they kind of sucked. Looking at them just pisses me off as I could have hit my goal if I would have tried a little harder. I guess it wasn't my day. 

Now that I think about it, I have never had a TERRIBLE race. I read stories about people having horrible, painful (OK Ragnar hurt) or emotional races but I don't, I just have good or OK and I'm alright with that.

I think my mind was not in the race, but with my friend waiting at the finish line and with the streets of San Fran. I couldn't wait to be done. And when I crossed the line, I was done.


Gio asked me "do you want to hang out, sit down or rest?" and I said "nope, let's roll". She was the dream race crew. She woke up early, had my pre-race breakfast on hand, drove my ass around, cheered me on (I saw her 2x on the course and she yelled SO loud and took pictures and gave me the play by play on all the girls outfits and was very perplexed at the amount of makeup she saw on girls faces) and told me she was proud of me even though I was grumpy for like, 5 seconds afterwards.

The End. 

Actually we went and drank a few cocktails and ate some food...and Matt put up with us for 2 solid days, he is angel because I know we are annoying...


Walked around (Fleet Week in SF is awesome) and caught part of the airshow...



I felt super "fall like" (or Lumberjack-ish) in my plaid shirt and you are welcome for this high quality vanity shot...


I soaked up some Cali sun...


 We watched bad TV, I shopped (hello Lululemon), drank wine, ate pizza and ice cream cones on a street side cafe and laughed MY ASS OFF until I went home Monday night.


 And ya know what, good friends are better than "OK" races.

1 comment:

  1. Hmm, so, seems like most people think that speed work makes you faster. This is probably true, however, I don't know that it works for everyone. Some people respond way better with lots of easy miles. It depends. I know that, personally, I start getting injury issues when I do more than one speedwork (tempo, fartlek, track, whatever) per week.

    But, in the half and full marathon, one running coach I spoke to said that if you're running 30 mpw easy, you'll get more benefits from running 50 mpw easy, than doing like 35 mpw with a tempo in there.

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