Flat Busted

I ran a DNF this morning. 

Wednesday

Ever had one of those weeks where you are in a foreign country at 78 degrees and sea level on Wednesday and on Thursday you’re back home and it’s sleeting and Sunday it’s 58 and sunny and by Tuesday at 0500 Eastern Daylight savings time you realize that your lungs are complaining and your right calf is twitching and you haven’t even started your run yet?

Friday

Yeah. 

Me either.

So, I wasn't Dead Ass Last this morning for most of the run... until I was..

At mile 4.6 I was so far off the peloton that I realized that they weren’t going to come back for me because they didn’t know I was still back there. Most of the slower runners had turned to take the shorter route back by that point.

I was alone in the dark and kinda disappointed.

To Be Clear:  I’m not upset with the Back To Last Crew.

It’s no one’s fault but my own for not pushing myself to keep up.  I was just too far gone at that point.  I'm not sure when it went to hell exactly, but I think it was somewhere around mile 4.  That's when I looked at my watch and realized I had no business expecting anyone to come back for me.  

My pace was just too far off the mark.

I was also slightly over dressed. I did everything I could during the run to cool myself off.  I pushed up my sleeves. I unzipped my ¾ zip top. Nothing helped.

I was busted.

So at mile 5.5 I turned off my watch and walked the short distance back to the coffee shop where the Rogue Runners meet. I sat down and had a pleasant coffee with some nice guys who I’ve known for years, and some new friends who I met today.  

It was funny though, after coffee I commented to my friend that today in particular the guys were way nicer than usual. He chuckled, pointed out my generalized hotness, and then we discussed the politics of meeting new people.

He also said there were definitely some available men at Rogue, if I was looking for a guy to guy around with.

“Nope. I’m not interested. At all. I’m just here to run.”

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy runners. I think they’re great. Most of the time they’re hot. And generally I find runners to be among the friendliest people in the world. They will invite you for a run with them, even if they don’t know you. Even if you're in a foreign country. Or California.

Seriously, runners are the best.

But, "Guys" are not why I get up at oh dark hour and torture myself on the streets of Richmond several times a week.

When I got home this morning I was still thinking about the great conversation, and I saw myself in the mirror. I gasped. I didn’t see hotness; I saw a hot sweaty mess. I also saw why the guys were super friendly today. The ¾ zip was pretty low, and between that and the post run glow, I wasn’t just busted, I was busting out.

Whoops.

~savor the run~

WINE and CHOCOLATE and RUN. oh my

The Flowers my Run
got me for V'day

Yesterday I spent the morning with my Valentine. As I said before, my Run and I are in a deeply committed relationship. 

Its "The Year of the 5K", and I have made it a priority to get my speed back in 2015.  So in order to do that, I have to make goals.

The Long Term Goal – beat 23:25 22:59

Saturday’s Goals in no particular order:

Win.

Run Sub 8-minute miles.

Try Not To Suck.

Pretty simple, eh?

And beyond these things, anything else was just icing on the cake. And to be clear, there wasn’t cake, but the 5K was at New Kent Winery, so it didn’t matter.  There was WINE and CHOCOLATE and RUN.

Almost all of my favorite things together in one place.  ~pinch me~ 

So let me just start by saying what had’a happen’d wuz the weather was bitterly cold. But I thought it was just on the edge of my “skirt” vs “tights” line.  So I decided to wear a skirt for racing and change after. 

Maybe shoulda rethought that one, but s’ok. I survived. And the feeling slowly returned to my legs after a hot shower that drained the hot water heater...

Dash, Dot and I arrived to the race nice and early, parked, and headed up to the porta potty line, all the way commenting on how beautiful it is out there at New Kent Winery.

100% beautiful. And 100% cold. Freakishly cold. Way colder than I like. Way way colder than my lungs tolerate.  Back to that in a minute...

We checked our bags, ran about a mile warm up with a few strides thrown in, and since the race was scheduled to start at 9, I lined up on the start line at about 8:55.

An echo floated on the wind, "If you toe the line, you have to race."

 ~ Coach HP ~

And there I waited in the freezing cold. Standing still. Did I mention the cold? No? Ok. It was chilly.

That wasn’t a big deal though.  'Cos it was only for 5 minutes. Except that 15 minutes later I realized it was going to be a problem. 'Cos we were still waiting and my body was locking up. My lips could barely move. I was bouncing in place trying to keep warm but nothing was working.

My lungs questioned our sanity. I told them to STFU, my Run and I were on a date, Lungs would have to sit tight.

The race started at closer to 9:15, so I’d been standing still for 20 minutes in freezing temps with a wind chill of well below freezing. Wearing a skirt, ‘cos I’m legitimately stupid a Galactic Badass.

It was only a 5K though, and I knew it would be over soon.  

As usual, I didn’t wear a watch. Why bother? My race day strategy for the 5K distance is “Run on the edge of death, and when you want to die, push yourself just a little harder”.

I don’t know what my pace was at any given point, but at mile 1ish (the course was unmarked) I was running side by side with the 2^nd place female. At the turn into the golf course I dropped her and set my sights on the 1^st place female and she dropped me like one of Those People I Don’t Know on a Tuesday Morning.

I couldn’t catch her, so I entertained myself by chasing down the next available Male I spotted. I repeated my mantra in my head, "How bad do you want it?" as my body started to fatigue.

I finished on the uphill without looking too deeply at the clock.  I walked a few hundred yards past the smattering of volunteers with shaking legs while fighting to draw air in through my quickly narrowing wind pipe.

After I grabbed my checked bag and threw on all the clothing I’d brought, I headed back to the finish line just in time to see Dot then Dash cross the line. I grinned at Dash, “I hope you don’t mind if we hang out for a while... cos I’d like to stay for the awards ceremony...”.  I sounded like Hell; OH yeah, and at the wine tasting after the race, we ran into my Jr High boyfriend.  As in, the boy I "went out with" in 1990ish.

True. Freaking. Story.  

What are the odds? Well, apparently, when I'm involved, the odds are good that the world will continue grow smaller and smaller.

Back to the running. My personal best is still a minute out of range, but I’m making progress.

24:31 earned me Female Open Second Place.

7:53 avg. pace

I did not suck.

I failed at my goal of winning.

This is what failure looks like, if you want to know.

Failure looks like taking :45 seconds off my 5K time in two months.

Failure

Failure looks like an open bottle of wine at 10 a.m., a few beautiful roses, and many smiles. Failure can further be defined by the copious amounts of laughter and badassery that was exchanged across the span of a white tablecloth.  And by the frozen “My Banana is Hard” jokes. And by the hours that passed in the company of new friends as we grew increasingly breathless with laughter from the hilarity that ensued.

No one could have predicted that a 5K in New Kent would result in Jesus on a Log stories, the discovery of a really charming vineyard, and a deeper appreciation of why it’s important for women to surround themselves with a good support system.

our new friends - seriously, these
women define Galactic BadA**ery
without even trying.

I ended my day by having two pretty severe asthma flare-ups. I leaned on my support system for one, and relied on my own knowledge for the other. It will likely change my run strategy this week, but I’m hopeful that this was an acute event, not the beginning of anything else. 

This will be a “recovery”/”baby myself” week, but I'll be out there chasing the Back To Last crew as soon as my lungs allow.

Finally -

To the Race Director of the Vinterra Race for the Chocolate there's only a few things I would change about your race. The Race Tent needed heaters inside or a Fire Pit outside. There was no place to wait before the race that was warm.  The race should have started on time, or the runners should have been advised that it was 15 minutes behind schedule.  The course was great, exactly as advertised. I will definitely run this one next year.

The Year of The 5K : The Updated Stat Sheet.