Running, you can be such a b*&$@.

Me and some of the girls (and guys) made the trip to the Windy City this weekend the Shamrock Shuffle 8k downtown. The race features an elite team competition with a big prize purse, and based on the results in past years, our team would've been right in the mix to bring home some cash.

You ever have an experience where you're just swimming against the stream the whole time? No matter what you do? Yep, that was my season opener. I had one of my best workouts earlier this week and had been feeling strong and fresh, and then on Sunday, I'm pretty sure someone traded my racing flats for cinder blocks.

I had a race plan; Coach and I talked mid-week about the smartest approach and execution. I've come to learn that we should never really expect anything to go exactly according to plan, and mental flexibility is necessary for success in any endeavor. So when the gun went off and I felt like a total piece of you-know-what, I knew that the plan was going to have to bend a little. Perfect execution: out the window. Here's my training log entry recapping how I felt and the accompanying thoughts:

4:30am: up to shake out and have breakfast. ate like an animal yesterday and still hungry like a crazy person this morning. i dont think i moved an inch from the time my head hit the pillow til the alarm, which, in retrospect, was not necessarily a good sign. felt god awful shaking out. i was hardly moving.

7:40am: rush to tent, get there later than i wanted, warmed up feeling pretty flat, resist asking Delilah for an autograph, throw the flats on, wait in line for bathroom, unknown man comes in and yells/announces that we have ten minutes til we have to be in our corral. I'm like "wait a minute, I thought we had until 8:20?" - which was ten minutes after he said we had to be roped in. went up to the corral to see that the only place to stride was a chunk of grass/sidewalk about 30 meters long. Did a couple and decided that it was worthless, said "fuck this" and ran outside and did 2 x 30 sec @ race pace, jog 30 sec. Hopped in the corral, stood around, examined tattoos, chit-chatted. 

Plan: Be conservative first 30% of the race, holding back aiming for 5:55-6:00 for the mile, and after 9 minutes or so, start hunting people down, and with a mile to go, haul ass for home. Negative split as big as possible.

Actual: Worse race reality, uh, ever, short of racing sick. Wasn't sick, but every step felt like it cost me what 3 normal steps should. went out in 6:04-5 and it felt like 5:35. I think "okay, you always feel better as workouts go along. Just hold out, you'll find a groove." Just tried to wait it out til I looked down and saw 9 minutes, and prayed that a change of rhythm would feel better. Tried to turn it over a little bit. People WERE starting to come back to me, some of the elite women, but mostly the stupid men in corral A who went out like idiots.

Hit 2 miles in 11:59ish. "Shit shit shit." About a half mile later, a girl in front of me stepped off the course. I wanted SO bad to follow and had to do some major major mental self-coaching. "You did NOT come all the way to Chicago to walk off the course. Steph is right behind you and you're going to fuck her over mentally if she sees you walk off." 

Keep going. "Put your eyes on that purple singlet." Girl looked REALLY familiar, but I don't know why I recognized her. Came up on her and ran beside her a little, gave her a little "Okay, let's move." She didn't come with but gave me a "good job." Miss the 5k mark-maybe a good thing, but maybe not. I was SURE I was running 7min pace a couple of times, but if I'd caught the 5k split I would've realized I wasn't really going backwards at all. I'm not sure I would've put a positive spin on that at that point in time, though. Hard to say.  Bounced between "holy shit, I'm dying" to "latch onto that singlet and cling. You're good at being annoyingly clingy."

Nick was at the 4 mile mark and I'm just wanting to die at this point. Goal went from hauling ass the last mile to just getting ass across the line. Clearly looked like shit because the only thing Nick could yell that was positive was "You're beating so many boys and I'm so proud of you!" I'm thinking "I don't give a SHIT about the boys, it's the women I want to be beating!" 

Didn't get a 4 mile split because honestly it would've required too much energy to look down, and I was going to need all the forward momentum I could get to get home. The one good thing about the last mile was that women WERE dying, so I had caught a couple from 4-4 1/2. Pretty much the only thing on my mind was how far I had to go once I crossed the bridge and U-turned for home. Remembered Brandon said 400 to go once you crest the hill on the bridge. Caught 2 women going up that hill, wanted to die hardcore, and then tried to not be going backward in the stretch. Pretty sure the only reason I didn't was because it was downhill. Clicked my watch at 29:57, but I haven't even looked at the official chip time yet, partly because I don't want to see team results and realize that if I'd had a decent race we would've been in the hunt for some $$.

Mile 4 deathwish

Kinda felt like I was running through sand the whole time. Honestly, if I had felt like that and run a crazy-fast out-of-my-mind race, I'd say that's probably what it needed to feel like, but yeah, not a time like that. Now laughing because I really did shuffle at Shamrock. Literally laughing out loud. Ahhhh. Running, you can be such a bitch!

There were probably a few more f*&!'s in sprinkled throughout that profanity potpourri, but you get the idea. I updated Liz post-race; she of course was very positive and encouraged me to take it as a learning experience at the very least. I'm still fuming, and of course I deem the race as just a giant clusterf*&$. Three days later, I'm still rehashing, but even that same afternoon after talking things over with both Liz and Coach, I started to take a few lessons away from it:

• I negative split the race even though I felt like I was going backward the whole time. Just because you feel like complete and utter shit doesn't mean you're necessarily running that bad.
• I wanted to quit. A lot. Multiple times. I'm totally willing to hurt, but there better be a reason for it. Hurting like hell to run slow is a double whammy. Runners aren't masochists; we like pain most usually only because it means we'll be rewarded fast times and good races. I learned I can hate every step of the way and keep going forward anyway.
• I don't travel well. Driving the day before an important race is the least ideal transportation situation for me, and I will avoid it at all costs in the future.
• I can't worry about everything and take care of myself the way I need to. As much as I hate the idea, I indeed have limits, and trying to exceed them will bite me in the ass. Hard. 8000 meters' worth.
• Holding my shit together is exhausting. I hadn't gotten too down on myself about the race and had tried like hell to brush it off, but I found myself sobbing like a baby replying to a simple email from Coach outlining the next month's training. I was just tired. After I leaked the tears, it was like someone pulled the gorilla off my back...and like I'd gotten stung by a bunch of bees and had a puffy-eye allergic reaction. Lovely.

I'm sure I'll add to that list as time passes still. Meanwhile, I'm eatin' on that sauce. No, not that sauce. This one. You can find the recipe over on Momma Pea's blog and had to make it. Follow suit. You won't be mad. I drowned a stirfry of spaghetti squash, sweet potatoes, and shiitake mushrooms in it. Winner winner tofu dinner.