What do you do when the race you took 5 months out of your life to train for suddenly does down the drain? When you're in shape, but your body fails you? If it hasn't happened to you yet, just wait. It will. There will be some point in your athletic endevors when "it" just isn't there for you. And when it happens on a race day - it sucks. It happened to me at the Women's Half-Marathon last September. And this past Saturday at the Country Music Half-Marathon, it happened to one of my favorite running buddies (who doesn't know I'm writing this so I'm omitting her name).
My friend and I have been training for this race since January. We've run in 17 degree weather. We tackled the hellish hills of Percy Warner Park together. We even took a lunch break to do speed work once freakishly windy Tuesday afternoon. And while the past two weeks of training were pretty sparse for both of us, the base was definitely there. We had a great 9.5 mile run two weeks prior so overall, we were pretty ready for this race. No PR or anything, but I felt confident we'd finish pretty strong, especially since we were running together.
But when race day came, things just didn't come together for her. Her legs cramped, her shoulders hurt, she got blisters on her feet... These things had never happened previously! Why on race day? Who knows... Could have been the heat, as it was the possibly 2nd hottest day Nashville has had this year (the first being the day of my slog through hell). Could have been what she ate for dinner, or didn't eat for dinner. Maybe she was dehydrated? But I gotta tell you, when you're in it - you don't really care. You just want to stop running. Immediately.
But here is the part that I love. My friend didn't stop - and she had ample opportunity to. The Country Music Half-Marathon is a HUGE race with about 35,000 participants. Medics were EVERYWHERE. It would have been extremely easy to walk to a medic and say "I'm through" and receive a nice ride to the finish. But that didn't happen. Painful step after painful step, my friend made it closer to the finish until finally we were there. Not wanting the race to beat her - she sprinted over the line though I know it had to be killing her.
I think most people judge the success of a race by how fast you completed it. Sure, it's hard when you run fast and it hurts bad, but as "athletes" we train our bodies to push ourselves like this. I actually think the true test of an athlete is how they adapt when their body throws a curve ball on them on race day. To me, finishing a race when every fiber in your body is telling you to stop is just as much, if not more of an achievement than finishing fast.
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