No complaints today. It’s a new thing for me. But I had a good race yesterday, at the NYRR Club Championships. Although I’ve never run this race before, I do have a bit of a history with it.
Three years ago, I had just started doing long runs with the Taconics. I was running with Nancy B and she asked if I had ever run a race. Being, I thought then, a non-competitive person, races seemed alien to me. Wasn’t it great to just run? Enjoy the day? ”No, I haven’t, Nancy, have you?”
She answered without hesitation ”Racing is the point of running. Why would you run if you don’t race?”
Wanting to find some common ground (I’ve found that arguments in long runs almost always increase the pace. I was holding on for dear life at this point) I said “wow, I guess I should try it. What’s a good race to start with?”
“well, I don’t think you could score for us, but see if you can sign up for the club championships next week,” she suggested.
About a month later, I ran my first 5k. Two months later a 10k. Three months later a half. Sixteen months later a marathon. Three years later, I finally ran the race she suggested.
The club championships are a part of the NYRR points system. Which is a little confusing, but it’s a way for local teams to compete against each other throughout the season. Each race that counts towards the points system gains each team points, and at the end of the year, the winning team gets a box of fifty dollar bills. Er, I made that last part up. It’s not clear to me what you actually get, but there’s a nice dinner. Cocktails. Maybe a free pair of shoes. I made that part up too.
I’ve had a pretty good summer of running, and as I’m not targeting a race in the fall, I’ve tried to have a more relaxed. The night before this race, I wasn’t stressed at all. At first. Then my lack of stress lead to stress about my lack of commitment to stress. If I wasn’t stressed, how could I run well? Stress.
Woke up the morning of the race, went outside and was thrilled to realize it was actually cool. Like 68°. It’s been a brutal summer in the New York area, so I was thrilled. Drove down with my friend Ted. I hope someday, after I run with the Taconics for 30 years or so, someone will let me drive. But until then, I sit in the car and tell jokes. A service that no one seems to have missed before my arrival.
We got to the park, picked up our numbers, and right away it was clear that this was going to be a small field. You need to be a member of a running club and — I think — have run in a scored race in the last 12 months, so I imagine there were only 1000 runners or so. Also, the men and women ran separately, with the men starting at 8am and the ladies at 9.
What this meant was that we could get moving faster sooner — no shuffling through people at the start, and that was great. First mile was a 6:23 — I was shooting for a 6:35, so that was great. I’ve found in the past that a good first mile is often a curse for me, I often lean back and relax a little if I’ve hit my first split, and I was loathe to do it again. Send mile was a 6:23, third was another 6:23.
Then, I had the rarest feeling in a race: optimism. It’s possible I could pull this off, hit my target and have a good race. I still had cat hill to do, but if I could put some speed in the bank, things would be great. Mile 4 came in at 6:37, not bad with that freakin hill. I pulled it off! Mile 5 6:16…. my watch gave it’s last report of the day with a 32:56 overall, which is a 6:27 pace.
I’ve got a horrible mind for numbers and I couldn’t remember what my goal time was — I knew, based on McMillian, I was supposed to run 6:35 pace, but for some reason I thought that would mean a 30:05 overall. When I knew I was having a good race I thought “man, you could pull this in under 30!” thinking that would only be six seconds faster than my goal. When I saw 32:56, I was heartbroken as I thought I was way off. Luckily, I had written down my goal time and the pace on a piece of paper (see, I really can’t remember anything). I was thrilled when I pulled that paper out of my bag. ”33:04″ it read. Good news. Good day.
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