Woes of Commitment

It's mid June 2009 and I have about 30 days to kick things into high gear. I have a six mile race to run and I'm starting to freak out. Pathetic I know. But hey, the longest I've ever run straight is 1.5 miles, in 7th grade...

I was encountering an issue, I would plan a 25 minute jog and by the time I was at 8 minutes, I was completely dogged. once I hit 11-12 minutes I was done. After a few days of this I just decided to drop the pace a bit, turns out I'd being going about 8 minute miles, which at this point was pretty max for me. SO I headed out for a run with just under 4 weeks to go and slowed the pace. I went for a whole 45 minute super easy jog, and didn't quite hit 5 miles. But I was stoked!!! New lesson learned: Don't skimp out on the "easy" part of easy runs, just relax and enjoy the run.

After that training was pretty consistent for a few weeks, but once again, I got overconfident and lazy. I knew I could do the distance so for the last 10 days leading up to the race I only ran 3 times. Mistake # 1.

Mistake # 2: Applebees Quesidilla burger. Midnight of race day.
Mistake # 3: Out with friends until 3 AM race day.
Mistake # 4: I still hadn't invested in running shoes, and the shoes I was wearing race day, were literally falling apart. (I mean literally, I used duct tape race day...)

So yeah. Heart still not in it.

Race day: I don't mean to say I was being a total pile. I showed up as enthusiastic as ever stoked and ready to do my leg. I had a blast but my time was nothing to brag about. Easy, flat, out and back 6 miler. When I said I was enthusiastic I meant it! I hit the first 3 miles hard turning around at about 22 minutes. Then I died... finishing in 47:00. A 7:50 pace.

What happened after the race is the important part, the spark was lit. I felt like a little bit of a let down, both to my team and to myself. So that day I vowed to do the Sprint Course next year. I told myself "I'm not taking a single day off until this race. I will do one thing every day to prepare, on my off days, I'll stretch or practice transitions, anything, as long as I do something."

Triathlons, here I come!