A humbling and frustrating race

Today was entirely humbling, and very frustrating. Before I get into any details, I want to open with this following picture.

The feedback that I’m getting from just about everyone is “the important thing is that you finished.” The medal pictured above is proof. Yes, that’s great, however, knowing that I completed the race doesn’t make me feel any better for having what I consider to be a really rough race. How rough? I actually missed my old time for last year’s Waterfront Half. By extension, tat also means that I missed my personal best by a very wide margin. Now, can you see why I’m somewhat disappointed in myself? So what happened? Let me give the breakdown after the jump.About 15 minutes before the race, I was speaking with a group of people that were from the half marathon clinic that I was helping out as a pace leader. This was their first experience, so I told them that it would be prudent to the Port-o-lets so that there would be no distractions during the race. They agreed, but by the time we got to the booths a long lineup had formed. By the time we all finished there was only about 5 minutes before the gun. We tried to rush to our designated corral, but the amount of people there just made movement tough. As it went, the gun actually went off while we were trying to making it to our spot. As it went, there were so many people anyway that when we got to our area that part hadn’t even moved an inch. If I recall correctly, last year it took me about 8 minutes to cross the starting line after the gun. This year, it took me 10 minutes. Crazy!

So, two people decided to run with me at least for the first little while. I was fine with that, but I was conscious about not wanting to go too slow so as not to hold them back. I urged them to go ahead a couple of times, but they stressed that they wanted to stick with me for the first half. I kept the pace up and we kept it steady for 12 kilometres. At that point I just told them to go ahead at that point. I knew that they were capable of going on ahead, so I guess I basically set them free. Well, part of it too was that I was starting to ache. I wasn’t sure what it was right away, but as the kilometres piled on it became more and more apparent. So, after 12K I cut down my pace a little bit to give myself a bit of a break. After another kilometre or two, I had to start stopping more and more frequently. My lower back was aching fiercely. It eventually got to a point where I couldn’t hold a good pace for longer than a few minutes. I didn’t know what was going on! Between 13K and 14K I started losing my positivity. In my mind, all I could think was “EPIC FAIL.”

Now, I can deal with race aches; I know what they’re like. This one though was quite different. As was exhibited in Mississauga back in May, even if I’m aching, I can usually push through it. This one caused me to just stop running. I couldn’t focus! Each time I slowed to a walk I grabbed my lower back, desperate to stretch. I knew though that I couldn’t stop, so I forced myself to keep moving forward. Any forward bursts of speed were quickly brought back down to a walk. It was a terrible feeling–both physically and mentally. There were a couple of points where I had to ask myself, “will I be able to finish?” I saw person after person pass me. I felt like such a failure. Depression was starting to sink in on the course. Can you imagine? I think, by 17 or 18K I felt resigned and finally told myself: “I’ll get there when I get there–even if I have to crawl across the finish line.” The last few kilometres were hard because the finish line was so close, yet so far away.

Finally, I made it to the stretch up Bay St. to the finish line, which is about 1K up hill. I was struggling to find any energy. Along the way one walker gave me some encouragement. I connected with her and told her that I’m going to use her to pull me along. She kindly agreed. At one point I told her to go ahead because again I felt like I had nothing left but she urged me on. At the last 200 metres she picked up her speed to a light jog and we ran in together. I feel fortunate to have met her along the way, for sure. Without her, I’d probably have crossed the finish line looking like a wreck again, but instead I was all smiles.

I was pretty much hobbling all around city hall for the next hour or two just trying to find places to rest. I took off my water backpack to get my cell phone, but when I did, I totally felt the results of the damage. I find it interesting that my lower back and my abdominals were aching pretty badly. What that tells me is that my new water backpack was the culprit. I never had issues during the long training runs. I remember feeling a little bit sore on my speedy tempo runs, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Now I know that any running that increases the jostling around is just bad for the back.

So yeah, I’m disappointed with myself because, hell, I know I can do better. I should have paid more attention to my body. Who knew that the pain would be exacerbated to the point where my race would be adversely affected? This is a learning experience for sure. If I’m being honest, part of me feels like I failed other people. It’s not uncommon for me to hear that my determination has inspired people. Can I still be that way after this? I don’t know. I think it’ll take me a little while more to digest what happened today. After that, all I can do is dust myself off and look forward to the next race. I need to keep my eyes forward toward the horizon.

Possibly related posts:

1. The race, and the sleep deficit
2. Goals for tomorrow’s race
3. The race on the horizon