Thought for the Day

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Hurt

"I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel"
 - Trent Reznor, "Hurt"

Ouch.
Yesterday my legs felt baseball-bat-beaten. They're a little better today.
I ran the Arizona Road Racers Desert Classic 30K on Sunday, which should have been a fun, unique distance. It should be too short to "hit the Wall." But the sad fact is I was in no shape to do this race, and it's been a long time since I've been in shape to do any race.

I have some amazing friends, and some of them also ran this 30K.

The indomitable Melissa Williams was first in her age group, with Lara Pockros just behind her in second and type 1 diabetic Ironman Kevin Burgess following her.
Mel and Lara

I had kept right with them through the first half of the race, on an out and back course along the Arizona Canal. But I was hurting. Both legs were sore, but at the twelve mile marker, I thought to myself, "It's only a little over a 10K to go. Pick it up!"
As soon as I accelerated a little, my left calf started to cramp. It never knotted up, but it threatened me.
And after about 14 miles, I had no more energy to even think about accelerating.
People started passing me from behind. They weren't speeding up, most of them. It was just that I was slowing down.
I had dropped into that death march that should only happen in a marathon you're under-trained for, and this was just a 30K.

OK. Lesson learned. Again.
I have the Carlsbad Marathon on January 23rd, and plenty of time to train for it. I got one good, long run in on Sunday. I put in a lot of miles at marathon pace. I can be ready to race without hurting myself too bad by January 23rd, right?

.

3 comments:

Scully said...

WICKED musical reference my friend!
I think all of us runners have probably ran races we knew we weren't totally prepared for.
Hopefully all this race did was remind you to train for the next ;) so recover up those legs!

Jen said...

Nairn pull it together like I know you can! I want to see those snot rockets...MISS me in Carlsbad :)

Crandell Fam said...

I wasn't ready for St. George...which is probably why I DNFed! :( But, I'm doing Carlsbad (only the 1/2) and feel very ready for that. I need to find another marathon to do before IMSG. And seriously...are you doing Andrew's training program? If not, I can forward you the emails that have the workouts in them. We just started 2 a days. Let me know if you want them! :)

Powered By Blogger