Love Run: Failing Upward
What I did wrong and why you won't make the same mistakes I did
More often than not, I am the runner who will not race until I’m absolutely confident it will go well.
When you look at my race results, I rarely have duds.
If I’m not fit and not ready to race, I don’t. It’s why I usually don’t race as often as most of my friends or training partners.
There’s something wired in me - it’s not a fear of bad results - it’s more of a ‘let’s do the work first, then race second’ approach that has gotten me to where I am today.
But, (and this is a big but), I must be getting old and senile because I did the exact opposite this weekend.
Maybe it was because I said I wanted to pace Gil or maybe it was because my year has been so shitty so far that what could make it any worse? I don’t have all the answers.
Below, you’re going to find everything I did wrong and what I could have done instead to make things better. Within this, you’ll find the wisdom/nuggets that will help you make better decisions when it’s time for you to race.
Ready? Let’s go.
Running in a race unprepared. I don’t mean a little unprepared, I mean fresh as a daisy unprepared. As you might have guessed, the calf cramp has persisted and my lack of running is evident from my Strava. It’s not useful or wise to run in a race when you aren’t ready for it.
Running in a race with an injury. This is a no-duh, but I had paid for the race and anticipated running in the race at the beginning of the year. It’s still not an excuse and it probably set me back about 3 weeks.
Thinking I could run a race and use experience instead of fitness to get to the finish line. When healthy, I can still race fast. But having that experience doesn’t substitute fitness. It’s more important to be undertrained and healthy than over-trained and or injured.
Expecting to use nutrition without testing it in training. Luckily, I didn’t run far enough into the race to warrant taking nutrition, but I have no idea how that would make me feel because I didn’t take on any nutrition during training.
What I did well that others did not:
Warming up with a jog before the race. You can’t really run well if you don’t do any kind of warmup. Does it have to be long or elaborate? No! But you have to do some kind of movement to get your body ready to race.
Having appropriate throw away clothes to keep warm before the race. I saw hundreds if not thousands of runners who did not have any long sleeves or sweats on prior to the race. An hour before the race, in 40 degree weather, is not the time to not be wearing any warm clothes.
Getting to the race in time. Not only were runners not warmed up, not wearing enough clothing, they were also so late to the race start line. (←3 different links to race day warmups). If you aren’t doing anything to get to the start line on time, I don’t have much else to say about your performance.
Having clothes to put on after the race. The after-race cold was real. There wasn’t much sun out and cold, wet skin gets right into your bones. I had packed sweats for after and even with the finish line heat blanket, I was shivering. Imagine not having anything dry or warm to put on after? Total fail.
Very cold post-Love Run Would I run the Love Run again? Probably. I don’t have anything wrong with the race itself. But I’m for damn sure not signing up for any races until I’m healthy (and quite fit).
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