Saturday, April 17, 2010
Meeting Goals
I started running in January 2008, thanks in large part to encouragement from my friend Ethan, who had started the previous year. After a "practice" race with a distance of 8K, my first real race was the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler. I hoped to run it in 90 minutes, and I ended up beating that by a little more than a minute. Yeah, I was happy.
But as one goal is achieved, another is set. My plan after that was to get to the point where I could run it in under 80 minutes. That took a while.
I run two 10-milers a year, this one in April and the Army 10-Miler in October, in addition to the marathons. I kept improving, and last October ran that race in 80 minutes and 36 seconds...almost, but not quite, beating my goal. I was pretty disappointed in myself (at first, I thought I'd run slower than my previous race, and that really made me feel bad). I really wanted to hit that goal, but ran out of steam at the end and couldn't pull it off.
This time, though, I did it.
I ran the race in 79:10. I got off to a decent start, and by 3 miles into the race I was in a position to beat my goal. The trick then was to keep that pace (and if possible, speed it up a bit). I started having some pain in my thigh around 5 1/2 miles but was determined to run through it. I felt a twinge in the tendon by one knee at 8 miles, but decided if it got worse I'd slow down and if it didn't then I'd just keep going. Keeping an eye on my watch I could see I was doing all right, and by the time I hot the last mile I was 45 seconds ahead of my required pace.
But I forgot about the hill.
Yes, there's a hill during the last mile, and my legs hurt like you wouldn't believe. I'm pretty sure I was swearing, though things are a little hazy at that point. But I kept moving strong, and when I hit the top and things flattened out I took off to make up whatever time I'd lost. I was looking at my watch any more, just running with all I had. The Finish Line is around a curve so I couldn't see it until I was almost upon it, but when I did I really kicked it in and used the last little bit of energy...when I crossed the line I had pretty much nothing left. The time on my watch, though, made it all worthwhile. Somehow, even with the hill, I'd sped up by 5 seconds.
Yeah, this kind of made up for the debacle in Hong Kong.
What really got me through was the support of some friends: Stan sending a pre-race SMS from Denver, Ethan being out there on the course yelling his support during the second mile, wanting to see a smile on Linh's face when we went to our post-race brunch and I told him the news...these all helped a lot. I realize I'm not going to have a huge crowd of friends out there on the side of the road like some other runners have, but it's nice to know that a few folks are thinking of me as I'm working hard to improve.
Running may not seem like a big deal, and the times I'm recording certainly aren't impressive to anyone else, but they're impressive to ME. I'm pleased with my self-discipline, and I'm pretty happy that I'm able to do something now that I wasn't any good at as a kid.
Who would have ever expected me to be an athlete? Not me, that's for sure.
