First off, I came this close to missing the race altogether.
Race starts at 6:00 AM. Last shuttle bus in Ventura to the start line near Ojai leaves at 5:30. It’s sixty miles to Ventura. What time does my alarm go off? 4:15. Stupid.
I despise mornings with a passion. I’m groggy, slow moving, and a bit depressed and ill tempered in the early morning hours. Getting dressed is a blur, and breakfast is a chore. But by the time I start my car and hit the string of red lights on Santa Monica Blvd on the way to the freeway, ennui turns into blind panic. At 4:40 AM, I finally make it to the freeway.
Cop or no cop, I floor it.
Long story short, the last bus was running late, so I had 10 minutes to calm my ass down before the 20 minute trip to the start line began. And wouldn’t you know it, the race was running late, too. But one of these days, my luck is going to run out. But not today, and it’s never too late to change my habits. I cross myself and swear to whoever might be listening that I will allow myself plenty of time to get to races nice and early. But not too early.
When I first registered for this race last fall, I had visions most wonderful of hitting a shocking PR time, giving myself the confidence I needed to moon-shot a fall marathon (or two) for a Boston qualifier. But of course, injuries. Today, I just wanted to run as best I could and see where I finished. The last thing I wanted to do was injure myself. But it had been three months since the quadriceps injury, I had been slowly increasing my running distance and intensity, and most importantly, I had begun my new focus on twice-weekly strength and flexibility training. An inability to even pedal my bike a week after my injury had become the ability to do three sets of ten reverse lunges on each leg holding a 10 pound barbell in each hand. I had even got to the point where I was beginning to become a bit lazy and complacent. I reminded myself that I had goals ahead, and that slacking off on the foundations of strength, flexibility and movement would put me right back in the mire I had barely crawled out of.
With those thoughts in mind, I crossed the start line and began the first real race I’d run in nearly a year.
Have you ever run through mud? More specifically, have you ever experienced that particular dream when all the hounds of Hell are nipping at your calves and regardless of all the horror your subconscious can throw at you, you just can’t make any headway from the bloody, nipping razor sharp canines? That. For the first four miles. The officials who manage the race had changed the route to allow for road construction as well, so instead of a largely downhill course from start to finish, the course made a hairpin turn a mile after the start and threaded its way back uphill for for the next three. I maintained a relatively even 10:30-ish pace, though it surprised me how difficult that was. Well, of course! An inability to train for 12 weeks, along with having to re-strengthen injured musculature didn’t inure me to a pace I considered fast.
But… I had been training! Not as much as I wanted to, but more than a zero amount. And by the time we turned back around for the long downhill portion at the fourth mile, I found that pace more comfortable. I even sped up a bit, but then forced myself to ease back. Though technically not injured anymore, I knew all too well that I was prone to it. “You’re not going to break two hours today, Duane. It’s not in the cards. And even if you could, do you really want to risk re-injury for a 1:55 half marathon time, a pace that, under normal circumstances, you can run in your sleep?”
I settled on a 10:30 pace and vowed to hold onto it. That would be good enough, and would show me that the hard work I’d put in to pull myself out of all the injuries that beset me over the last several months had paid off. I thought of the weeks of sheer agony from the strained hip and pinched nerve that kept me awake at night, forcing me to shower in hot water several times to overwhelm the nerves and relax them so I could get another hour or so of sleep.
DON’T!! F***!! THIS!! UP!!
I listened, and even took walk breaks near the end when the few uphills through downtown Ventura reminded me of how pitifully out of shape I really was.
And I finished, in two hours fifteen minutes and ten seconds.
2:15:10. A full half an hour slower than my best time, and twelve weeks after I couldn’t walk without a limp and was in so much pain I contemplated searching out black market medications that could relieve me of the agony (well, let’s just say I came to an understanding of why some people do that very thing and leave it at that. It’s one less aspect of being an imperfect human that I’ll be “judgy” on from here on out).
I have another half marathon in four weeks. Getting back into my strength training. Forcing myself to run 4-5 days a week, even if it’s only for a few miles. Allowing myself to suffer through the muck of getting back to where I was before all this went down. Appreciating where I was, acknowledging what happened, and accepting all the challenges that will get me to where I want to go if I put in the work. And last but not least, accepting that nothing in life is guaranteed.
Quest To Qualify 