Triumph in the land of doubt

I spent much of the week explaining to myself why my 10k race would not be a success. My body felt tired. My running felt out of sync. I hadn't run enough. I hadn't run fast in quite some time. I don't run 10k races. It would be cold or wet or I don't run 10k races. I've run enough races to know that my brain lies and I said something about it to AJ, "My brain is in negativity mode." He said something like, "You know how to push your limits from running and from lifting. You'll be fine."

MB and I formulated a conservative plan. We would run 6:15 miles for a while and see how we felt. We were running as Team Shiver, a collection of Ultimate players brave enough to run a race in the mild Mid-Atlantic winter. There was a chance of rain, but I was secretly hoping for snow. The rain let up and turned to a mist. We crawled over a barrier and into the front quarter of the starting group. There were thousands of runners. "Go" was uttered and we shuffled to the start. Moments later, the race plan was out the window as competitive urges took over. We dodged and weaved our way through the crowd. Sometimes I was on MB's heels and sometimes he was on mine. The mile came quickly at about 5:55. So much for strategy.

From there, MB and I settled in and passed people. He led me. I led him. We each took a side and cruised on. We passed the mayor. I took a look at Reagan National Airport in the morning fog. We cruised through two miles at about 12:08. We hit the 5k mark at 18:43. Things were going well. We wrapped around the point and doubled part way back. I felt my first twinge of tiredness at that point, but fought on. Our passing had slowed and teammate SM informed us we were in something like 55th place as those coming met those going. I wasn't sure what to do with that information, but my inclination was to find more people to pass. We crossed 4 miles at something like 23:58. I don't remember how it happened, but suddenly MB was way out in front of me. I could still chase the black and gold of his stocking cap, but we were out of touch. I struggled on. I watched him battle a green and gold singlet and move on. A little later I went past too. I kept my eyes up and on his hat. I passed the 5 mile mark at 30:03. My body felt strong, although at times my arms felt a little heavy. As I pushed on, with the bobbing black and gold as my goal, I figured if I could hold on for 6 minutes and 43 seconds, I would be done. I don't know exactly why I thought that was the amount left, but I was pretty convinced. I crested a small hill on the mostly flat course and found a small group to battle as we made our way to the straight-away finish. I checked my watch and I still had 3 minutes to power through. I chased a woman who was moving, then I passed a guy as well. For the first time all day, someone came up on my shoulder. I held him off as we picked up the pace more and more. Then I break him. The long straight to the finish was still a pretty long straight to the finish and I soon broke too. He came back and passed me and kindly encouraged me. I struggled in, frustrated that I'd made my move too early. I had to fight a bit and I used the team as inspiration. I made my way in at 37:07, with a final place of 31st. Not a bad little 10k.

Since there were very few uniforms, there was no way to get a sense of how the team was doing. We could only support one another and hope. I think each of us had a moment where the team inspired us to fight off a few extra seconds. Later we would find out that we were 4th out of 49 teams. We'd done well as our 7 or 8 member team had become 6 and one of those didn't get a working chip. Four times (at least one of each gender) counted toward our final time. We were about 7 minutes out of third place, but had lots to celebrate over breakfast. I'm hoping for more some other day.