Race #19 - Colorado Women's Classic

Shwag

Date:  May 10th

Type: Run

Distance: 10K

Shwag: A Cotton/Poly t-shirt (which I’m wearing right now), allergy meds, a half-dead carnation, a sticker, some leg-cramp stuff, and men’s deodorant. Let’s think about this – It was a women-only race and they gave us men’s deodorant. This should have been a sign that perhaps these guys hadn’t completely thought out the details.  

I’ve been at this race thing for about five months now and I’ve done 19 races already. That means I’m almost halfway through! Overall it’s been a great experience and so many of the races I’ve done have surprised me with their charm and personality. From time to time, I’ve felt like all of my blog posts could be summed up with three sentences: It was a great event! I’m so glad I did it! I would definitely do it again!

I’ve worried that I’ve been too positive and that, perhaps, my posts might come across as insincere. Well, I’m not worried about that anymore. Race #19 wasn’t a great event. I’m not glad I did it. And I don’t think I’ll do it again.

There isn’t one specific thing that made this a bad race. It was one of those days when a lot of small things combined for the perfect storm of misery and crankiness. For starters, we’ve been having a very wet, cold spring in Colorado. At first it was a nice change from our typical dry, overly-sunny weather. Having spent the first 31 years of my life in Pittsburgh, I love a good gloomy day every now and then. However, we’ve had more rainy days than sunny days lately and it’s getting old. In some ways I feel like I live in Pittsburgh again, except for two things: The salads here don’t come with french fries on top (don’t knock it ‘til you try it, people!) and, as my dad likes to point out, Pittsburgh has been having consistently better weather than Boulder.

As a result, I’ve been running in the rain a lot and I’m pretty much over it. It’s been hard to motivate myself to run or do much of anything outside. To help get me out the door, I’ve been using my friends for motivation. Big time. To prep for my 50k this fall, I’ve joined forces with the FastForward Sports Ultra program, which is an awesome group of determined and inspiring people. The day before the Colorado Women’s Classic, the group was heading out for a 2.5 hour trail run. The temperature was in the 40’s and it was raining pretty steadily, so much so that I started having some flood-related PTSD from the flood in 2013. I thought about the prospect of being wet and cold. This was not appealing to me but I also knew it wasn’t an excuse and so did my friends. They said it was going to be fun and so I mustered my will and got myself to the trail.  

All smiles in the rain on Saturday

My friends were right! We ran around Walker Ranch and the surrounding area and it was amazing. I was wet and sometimes cold but it was a lovely romp through the woods. And, since Quad Rock (an ultra race in Ft. Collins) had been cancelled, the Rocky Mountain Runners group was also out at

Walker doing some loops (five, to be exact). It was great to have so much companionship on the trails and that shared sense of “we’re all nuts and it’s wonderful!” I went home happy and proud of myself for triumphing in less-than-perfect conditions.

You would think that after enduring 2.5 hours in the icy rain on Saturday, the prospect of an hour in seemingly better conditions on Sunday would have been a breeze. You would be wrong.

 We got a few inches of snow Saturday night but on Sunday the roads were clear and the sun was even peeking out from the clouds. Overall, it wasn’t a bad day for a run and I’m sure things would have been fine if the race was on a road. But, instead it was on a gravel bike path and the path was full of muddy, icy puddles. My feet had been plenty wet on Saturday but I hadn’t had to run through very many puddles on the trail. Plus, my trail shoes are well equipped to shed water so overall it wasn’t too miserable. My road shoes, on the other hand, those puppies sucked up the murky mess and held onto it like the sponges that they are. This did not make me happy.

You know what else didn’t make me happy? The race was really hard! My legs were wiped out from the day before and the entire race was a struggle. I probably would have been okay with the 5k but the 10k was about two miles too many. While I was prepared for my legs to be tired, I wasn’t prepared to feel as physically or mentally bad as I did. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I was that miserable at a race. It was a slog. And, I’m still pissed off at the person who decided to end the race on a hill. (It’s probably the same person who decided to give us the men’s deodorant.)

I know that most of the suffering was my fault. I could have gone slower, or taken more walk breaks, but I didn’t. I had a hard time staying in my bubble and ignoring everything else going on around me. A big part of this is because for the first half of the race, I was running next to a woman who was pretty much wearing ski pants and the shwoop, shwoop, shwoop noise they made was DRIVING ME INSANE. I had to get away from it.

And, if I’m being completely honest here, my ego also had something to do with it too. I felt like Ski Pants was trying to beat me, probably because the first time I tried to pass her, she noticeably picked up the pace. That annoyed me. Why am I annoyed that someone is racing me in a race? I don’t know. I’m weird sometimes, okay? All I know is that after that little incident I was determined not to let her beat me. The grownup in me knew this was stupid but was too tired to intervene. I left Ski Pants behind around the halfway point, which was a huge relief. Based on how hard she was breathing when I passed her, I knew she wasn’t going to catch up to me.

I told myself that I could take two walk breaks on the way to the finish. But then I didn’t. Why? Well it wasn’t because I was feeling amazing and just went with it. In fact, it was the opposite. I was feeling so miserable that I decided to keep running because walking would have slowed me down and, for the love of god, I couldn’t stand the thought of being out there for even 60 seconds longer than I had to be.

I trudged my way to the end, knowing that I had worked really hard to go really slow and that was disappointing. But, the biggest disappointment of the day by far was this: They said there would be a cupcake tower at the end of the race and while there was an arrangement of mini-cupcakes, it was anything but a tower.

Do you see that little three-tiered thing?
That's the "tower".

I realize there are real problems in the world and that I’m complaining because I didn’t get a bigger cupcake. The problem is that I was expecting a full-size cupcake. Actually, I was expecting a tower of full-size cupcakes because that’s what I was promised.

So much of life is about managing expectations, whether they’re your own expectations or the expectations of others. After so many good events, I just expected them to all be good, but that’s not realistic. As my friend Barb put it, when you say you’re going to do 40 races in a year, inevitably you’ll race when you’re ready and when you’re not, when the weather is great and when it’s crummy, and when you breeze through and when you slog through. And that’s exactly how life goes. But while it might not always be pleasant, you don’t quit. Even though the cupcake waiting for you at the finish line might not be what you had in mind, there’s still a little sweetness to be found in the experience.

Despite the fact that I was oozing negativity that day, there were a few positive things about the race:

• I got to see Heather and Gigi at the start and they were both so happy and positive that it helped me feel a little better. 



So nice to see Heather's
smiling face!

• When they kicked off the race, they were playing the Macarena, which is a really odd choice for Mother’s Day in 2015. But, my grandmother loved the Macarena so that song holds a special place in my heart. It was nice to be reminded of her and her completely crazy way of being in the world that is so very missed. 

 

Once I got home from the race I showered, ate some grub, called my mom to wish her a happy mother’s day, and then I napped. But not just any nap – we’re talking a three hour, pillow lines on the face, drool on the pillow, hardcore nap. It was glorious and necessary.

After I woke up from my partial hibernation, a less-cranky me drove to the store to buy myself a fancy cupcake. Sometimes life doesn’t live up to your expectations but that doesn’t mean you can’t take matters into your own hands.