Race Report: Iron Horse 15K

If I weren’t so wordy, I could have combined the reports for this weekend’s races into one report.  A Tale of Two Races if you will.  The races really were like night and day for me so that is an accurate literary comparison.

My participation in this race was touch and go for a while.  After the Race For The Fallen on Saturday, I injured my foot.  What’s strange is that I have no idea how.  I did not roll my ankle during the race and it felt fine while I was running.  I was in line for the massages and noticed the bottom of my foot hurting.  I figured it was some temporary soreness from running 3 miles on gravel or maybe a blister.  After the massage, I had to limp to the car because my foot hurt so bad.  I spent the next few hours limping around the house.  Luckily, I had a huge stash of Arctic Ease products that I collected from FitBloggin and a prize pack I won on MizFit’s site.  They make a “cryotherapy wrap” that I was able to use to ice and still get around.  At 2 years old, Lewis does not seem to understand “Mommy’s foot hurts so she needs to lay around all day.”

The icing seemed to work but I wanted to be sure everything was OK before attempting a 9.3 mile race.  I slept on it and woke up feeling fine.  I was still willing to quit or scale back my running to a walk if need be.  I have no interest in risking a serious injury that might destroy my Lookout Mountain 50M dreams.

So my foot felt fine and my legs felt pretty good considering the tough half marathon I ran the day before.  My coach told me to run this race hard too so this was not to be an easy training run.  I haven’t run a road race since April so I was unsure of what sort of goal to set.  I decided that if I could pull 10:00 min/miles on the trails I could at least do 9:30 min/miles on the road.  I set my base goal at 1:28:30 with a stretch goal of 1:26 (9:15 min/miles) and a reach goal of 1:23:50 (9:00 min/miles).

My best half-marathon back in January was done at an 8:50 min/mile pace.  However, the focus on my training has changed since then and I didn’t feel capable of hitting that kind of pace.  I have been training for strength and endurance instead of speed and there really is a huge difference between the goals.  I run mostly by effort now and most of the time that effort is supposed to be easy.  I can’t remember the last time I had to hang through an 8-mile tempo run at an aggressive pace.  I feel like I don’t really know that kind suffering anymore.  I know the suffering that comes with running for a very long time.  That kind of pain is different from the out of breath burning lactic acid kind of feeling that comes during a hard road effort.  I really can’t say that I’ve missed it!

I started the race very curious to see what I could do on the road.  I also remembered the lesson I learned the day before and held back in the beginning.  The race started with a nice flat 1 mile loop of Town Center Mall.  I PR’d on this course as a 5K back in February but resisted the temptation to go out too hard.  I stayed in the 9:35-9:45 min/mile range for the first 1.5 miles.  I did not bring my own water with me so I adopted the policy of walking through the water stops.

This worked out really well for a long time.  I picked up the pace as I warmed up.  At the 5K mark, I was at 28:32 which meant I was well within range of my goals.  I had exactly one hour to finish and doing two more 30-minute 5Ks seemed like an easy task.  The course was very flat so far and I felt no stress.  I relaxed and settled into the zone that had been missing during my other race.  I felt great.

We turned down a long street and got to see the race front-runners heading down the opposite direction after a turnaround.  It is crazy to feel like you are working hard but see someone at least a mile ahead of you working equally as hard.  There is a little disappointment for me in the knowledge that my hard mile will never be as good as their hard mile.  But hey, we all have our talents and props to them for doing what they were clearly born to do!

I checked the time at the 5 mile mark and I was at 45 minutes and change.  This was good news too because that meant I was hitting my reach pace even after walking through 3 of 6 water stops.  I still felt very good and strong.

A man running a bit behind me commented to his partner that they were doing 9:15 min/miles or something.  He then said to me “You are amazing young lady!”  We chatted a bit about running and races and then he said something like “…Because let’s be honest you aren’t built like the typical runner.”  The implication being that I physically look like I should run more slowly than I do.  Hmm.  Is dude calling me fat?  Is this a compliment or cut-down, both?

I was honestly a bit perturbed.  Maybe I was being sensitive about the 10lbs (12lbs?) that I’ve gained since shifting my focus to running.  But really, I’m an Athena runner all day long even at my lightest weight.  I’m a black girl and I have the accompanying (stereotypical) booty to show for it prominently displayed in my capri pants.  I have big (mostly) muscular legs and arms.  I do carry a good bit of muscle so I’m not sloppy, I’m just not a waif.  I never have been and I never will be.

I don’t know if old dude’s comment took my head out of the game or what, but I broke down and took a walk break shortly thereafter and he passed me by.  The course veered into an unexpected direction then and headed up a small incline.  I really started to feel the fatigue from the race from the day before in my hamstrings.  I wanted water in the worst way and it was farther away than I thought.  I started to give myself permission to slack because I was uncomfortable.  We turned into a residential area and face a long incline.  I walked up most of this little hill before mentally slapping myself back into the game.  I had 2 miles left and did not want to fall apart.

Once we got back onto the main course and I got that cup of water I wanted so badly, I finally felt like I could get back into the zone.  We turned into the mall parking lot and I knew we had one loop left.  At the 8 mile mark, I vowed that I was not going to walk again because we were in the home stretch.  I concentrated on picking off a few people.  Since I am very familiar with the mall, I used landmarks to help too as we circled its perimeter.  My thoughts of “Just run to Macy’s.  OK now to The Varsity.  Now to Belk.” were amazingly helpful.

I saw the 9 mile sign and turned up the heat.  Breaking into a sprint with .3 miles to go was a foolish move because that’s a looong way to sprint!  I started to feel sick as I ran up the final stages of the course.  Now I remembered exactly how fast running suffering feels.  I managed to hold it together until the finish line mainly because there was another girl on my heels and I refused to let her pass me.

My official finishing time was 1:25:19.  I didn’t hit my reach goal but I surpassed my stretch goal with 9:10 min/miles.  A new PR!  That’s not a big deal though because I’ve never done a 15K before so anything would be a PR.

I feel like I redeemed myself from the despairing feelings of my race the day before.  I’m relieved to see that I still have a little bit of speed left even though I haven’t been training for speed.  I’m also insanely curious to see how I would perform at a road race with fresh legs.  I still want to get that 1:45 half-marathon one day!