Before getting to my post, exciting running news this week. There had been a rumor on LetsRun that Kipchoge wouldn’t race again in 2018 but now he’s going back to Berlin. Fingers crossed for good racing conditions that day. On to the post…
Last week I wrote that untamed running would be featured for this post in the context of the Jackalope 5K. However, based on a few unexpected occurrences that day and having to make adjustments before and during the race, I’m modifying my topic for the week. The Jackalope 5K is still the subject but learning to make adjustments is the focus.
It’s 7:20 a.m. in Laramie, WY. The Jackalope 5K starts in 40 minutes. I got here at 7:05, close to my planned arrival, and got my race bib and information. Now, I’m going into race mode. It’s not what I would normally do, but it’s an adjustment that needs to be made.
A standard 5K/10K warm-up for me is a light 20 minutes of jogging, stretching, several striders, a final porta-john call, discarding any lingering warm-up clothing, and getting to the start line about 5-10 minutes before the race begins. Sometimes this doesn’t work out, such as this past Saturday where I got rid of my warm-up gear forty minutes before the race and got in around 10 minutes of light jogging. Or a snowstorm a couple of years ago where I had to cut my warm-up short to do a complete wardrobe change because I was already soaked to the skin.
How do you cope when your warm-up plan is thrown off, even a little? The most important part of the pre-race routine is getting to the line before they start it. Everything else between that and your ideal warm-up is different grades of readiness. Don’t let things not going exactly according to plan sink you. And, be open to a slightly different routine being effective for you. Move on quickly and you may surprise yourself with your adaptability.
It’s 8:04 a.m. The race is starting a few minutes late to accommodate the long line at bib pick-up–this is a very generous move by the organizers. I look around at the other competitors, trying to figure out how I may stack up. I’ve never run here before, I don’t know anyone, and it’s impossible to know how their times match up to mine. Now it’s 8:05, and here comes the start…
After you’ve run for several years, you’ll have a good idea of how fast you are and you may have a sense of how you’ll finish in races. If you run the same race every year, such as a 5K/10K/half in your area, you’ll have an even better gauge of how you’ll finish.
Generally a goal in a race is to finish, make a certain time, and/or make a certain place. If you’re aiming for a certain time and fewer runners show up than you planned, you may not have as many people to pace off of. If you’re aiming for a specific place, perhaps more runners show up who are faster than you. For the former scenario, it may be more difficult to get your time but perhaps a higher place is attainable. For the latter, just reverse it. More fast runners could equal a better opportunity to pace off of them and get a better time. Neither is the scenario you planned for. Adjusting to them is better than losing yourself to frustration.
While you should have a reasonably intelligent prediction of how you will perform, you also need to be flexible in your thinking because race days are full of surprises, most of which are beyond your control.
We’ve been running for several minutes. Though my watch is going, with no mile markers I’m not entirely sure how I’m doing time-wise. I’m all alone in first place but I’ve come to a junction with three direction options. There are no race officials and no course markings. I’m losing time but there’s no choice but to wait for second place to catch up and hope that person knows where we’re supposed to go. I wait for about twenty seconds and here comes second place.
“Where do we go?” I ask.
“I don’t know!” is his response.
We pick the route that seems most logical and hope for the best.
If the course becomes problematic, such as the footing is worse than you wanted or you’re not sure where to go, this can be frustrating as there’s no correlation to either a higher place or faster time as in the scenarios above. When it comes to course issues, you’ll need to look for tangential positives. The weather for a trail 50K I did several years ago was gray and rainy and there were choices to make on directions deep in the woods. At an aid station, I paired up with a runner behind me and we worked together the rest of the race to make sure we got to the finish. I’m not sure how it would have turned out had I gone on alone, but I preferred not getting lost and I had someone to swap running tales with for about ten miles. From Saturday’s experience, it’s another good story for the racing repertoire.
We chose the correct route because a few minutes down the path, there are a couple of race officials. I’d been concerned that letting the second place runner catch up to consult about the course would jeopardize my chances of winning. However, I’m all alone in first place again. The nagging issue now is I only have a vague sense of how far I have to go.
With many weeks, if not months, of training having gone into a race, it’s natural to be unsettled when surprises happen. It takes some running maturity to learn how to adjust. Know yourself and your abilities. At this point in the race on Saturday, based on recent 5K times, I figured there was roughly a mile to mile-and-a-quarter to go. I could push the pace a little now to potentially increase the gap between me and the next runner while leaving a little gas for a final sprint if necessary.
The course is “lollipop” shaped and I’m headed into the last few minutes of the race, at least based on my time for the first segment. Is being at 7,000 feet versus 5,000 enough of an elevation difference to create some kind of unexpected fatigue at the last minute?
Is it easy to make mental adjustments during a race? Absolutely not. We get tied into different bits of knowledge and assumptions. If it’s a course we know well, different landmarks along the way may remind us of good or bad parts of past races or workouts. If it’s a course we don’t know, we may be uncertain about how far we’ve run or how steep the next hill is. You’ve presumably put in a lot of effort to prepare for this. For a new course, trust your training. If it’s a familiar course, try to shrug off past negative experiences. It’s a new day and a new run.
There are the purple and white balloons marking the finish line and I’m feeling good. A quick glance over my shoulder. I’m all alone. I give one extra push and cross the line in first.
Having been surprised in multiple ways over the years, I can assure you that it’s never easy to adjust. Winning this past Saturday was a pleasant surprise, especially with multiple parts of my warm-up routine not going the way I prefer and the challenge of one section of the course not being marked. When you have your own unexpected circumstances, make your adjustments, focus forward, and keep running.
Running food review of the week: (note–gels, bars, chews, and other items affect everyone differently. Try them on a short run before using them for a key training run or race): Hammer Gel Vanilla : I’ve always found Hammer gels to be a little thinner than other gels. This can make it easier to take down while you’re mid-run. The vanilla flavor was present but not overpowering and I got the energy boost I needed. There was no caffeine. I would use this again, especially if I’m already caffeinated and I need something that can be swallowed a little more quickly.
Untamed running next time, including Gatorade Green Apple soup and a small geyser…