Let the Races Begin!

I had my first race of the season on Saturday! I'll start with an analogy of how I felt when I finished, and then I'll explain why. Imagine how you would feel if someone told you that you won $200. Pretty excited and happy right? Now think how you would feel if they said, "Oops, I meant $20." Most of that happiness and excitement just turned to disappointment right? It's still awesome that you won $20 though, so why are you disappointed? Everything comes down to expectations. If you never thought you won $200, you would have been thrilled with the $20 without the slightest bit of disappointment.

Now I'll explain what happened to me on race day. I'm running along the course enjoying my 8 new songs I just purchased from itunes, feeling great, and I see the sign that says we have completed 5 miles. I'm a little confused because I had my Nike ipod attachment that counts my miles and it's usually pretty accurate, but it says I have more than 1.2 miles left (10k is 6.2 miles). I ask the guy running next to me, "Do we really only have one mile left?" He says, "Actually it's more like 1.2 miles." Still, my ipod said closer to 2 miles left than 1.2 miles though. Hmmm. I guess my nike ipod mileage counter isn't as accurate as I thought because this is an official race, so I'm sure they measured the course at least five times to make sure it was accurate.

Well, (supposedly) 1.2 miles later I crossed the finish line and looked down at my stopwatch to see a 42:37. I was expecting to finish closer to 48 minutes, so I was really happy with that time, but I still had a little bit of an unsure feeling. It was one of those "too good to be true feelings." As I was waiting in line to get my timing chip cut off my shoe I saw that same guy I had asked during the race if we really only had one mile left. I asked him again if he thought that was really a 10K. He said, "Ya, why?" I told him it just felt a little short and my time was a lot better than I expected it to be. He assured me it was a 10K, and this time I believed him.

As soon as my timing chip was off I immediately started looking for my two boys to tell them the good news. A few seconds later I saw them and excitedly ran over with a huge smile on my face to tell them I just ran a 7:00 min/mile pace. I was pretty proud and satisfied with that pace because I was only expecting an 8:00 min/mile pace at best. I did tell Scott that I wasn't sure if the race course was measured right, but at this point I decided to let that concern go and just be happy that I ran a great time, possibly my fastest 10k. (I'll have to go check now what that is.)

Now here comes the "oops you only won $20" feeling. I got talking to a girl that was wearing a garmin on her wrist. I expressed my concern to her about the accuracy of the race distance and she said, "Oh ya, I noticed that too. My garmin said 5.6 miles when I crossed the finish line." That's when my giddy pride of a 7:00 min/mile race got deflated. Talk about getting your parade rained on, your bubble burst, and all your pride squished. It was quite the effective lesson on staying humble. If the course would have been the full 6.2 miles my time would have been an 8:00 min/mile, which is exactly what I was expecting, but suddenly that time was nothing to be happy or proud about. Had I not thought just two minutes before that I had run a 7:00 min/mile pace I would have been completely satisfied with the 8:00 min/mile, but like I said before, it's all about expectations. As soon as I thought I had run and was capable of running 7:00 min/mile, I expected nothing less than that of myself.

I still have not heard anything from the officials about the race course being off. I'm really curious if anyone told them that they measured the course wrong, and there's still a teeny tiny part of me that wonders if the course was accurate, but I really don't think it was. I'm sure there are hundreds of runners out there oblivious to the fact that they still had about .6 miles to go. At least they'll enjoy their surprisingly good race times. What you don't know can't hurt I guess.


Even though it was a major kick in the stomach to realize that the course was measured wrong, I'm glad I figured that out because now I'm more motivated to keep training hard so that I can reach that 7:00 min/mile pace, especially since I got a little taste of what it would feel like to run faster than I expect of myself. It was a good feeling, and I really enjoyed it....for a few minutes anyway.

My next race is May 1st. It's the Provo half marathon, so I can't expect a 7:00 min/mile at that race since it's twice as long, but I can expect to be pleasantly surprised with my time as long as I put enough effort in to my training. I want that good feeling again, but I want it to last longer than two minutes, and not be followed up by a "oops we meant $20" feeling. So here's to some more painfully early-morning training runs!