Usually I like to do a pretty detailed race report, but I don't have a lot of details to report from this one other than that it was bad. I felt bad at the start, I felt bad on the first climb, I pretty much felt bad throughout. I was hoping to run the first half of the race at about 8:30 pace--similar to what I had run two years ago through the first lap--but struggled to run 9:00/mile pace over the first 16 miles through AS3. Rather than slow down, I tried speeding up to see if I could run my way out of feeling badly, and hammered the next six miles at just under 8:00 pace, coming through 22 miles at 3:12, within striking distance of the sub-4:30 I wanted to run through the first 50K, but it wasn't working; I started to feel worse and worse. I finished the first lap in 4:46, about twenty minutes slower than two years go, and spent a few minutes convincing myself to head back out for lap two. I'd like to report that I found my legs in the second half and had a strong finish, but I didn't. I ran-walked for the first two hours of the loop before getting a sort-of second wind and running consistent 10-11 minute miles for the next couple of hours, ultimately finishing up in 11:19, nearly two hours slower than my breakthrough run in 2016.
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| The spoils of mediocrity. |
One sentiment I hear all the time is that you learn more from races that go poorly than races that go well. This sounds like a very wise thing to say, but I don't think it's true. I take many lessons out of strong performances: I know what workouts were beneficial in my training, what worked in terms of race strategy and nutrition, and where I can expect to race relative to my competition. I suppose there are lessons to be learned from failure, if you can attribute a poor race to a mistake you made in strategy, preparation, or fueling. In this case, though, it's hard to feel like I learned anything that will help me the next time out. My training for the race had been nearly ideal, and I certainly didn't feel as if there were any aspects of my preparation that were missing; my times in the short prep races were comparable to those I'd run in the previous two years. I wasn't out too fast, either, actually running a slower pace than planned for the first 16 miles (which was hard to do with a huge field of fast guys hammering at the front). Maybe I was overtrained; maybe I had pushed some workouts too hard; maybe I was too focused on hitting splits over the first 50K that I got out of my comfort zone too early. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Sometimes when people invoke that maxim--that we learn more from defeat than from victory--they are speaking less of concrete lessons that can help us apply changes to future performances, and more about the nebulous idea that we learn about ourselves and our limits when "the going gets tough." That we have more strength than we think, that we didn't give up, that we can push through the next time we hit a bad patch. In a way I suppose this is true--you do need to suffer at some point in a race to learn how to deal with that suffering. Without learning that suffering can be endured, that it passes and gets better, we'd never make it through the rough stretches that define ultra running, and we'd never finish a race when we hit a bad patch. I'm not someone, though, who believes this is a lesson we need to learn over and over. I've been running races since I was twelve years old; I don't need to be reminded how to deal with suffering. I've never subscribed to the finish-at-all-costs mentality. I know I can finish; I'm not entering races to prove it to myself over and over again. I run races to challenge myself to perform and to compete against other runners at a high level. Everyone enters a race with a baseline goal of "just finish," but should we? What did I get out of walk-running through a 6:30 50K over the second half of that race? I accomplished none of my goals (other than the aforementioned age group win, which had nothing to do with me). I didn't learn anything new about myself or my "limits". I finished a race that I had no doubt I could finish very slowly if I needed to. I got the same belt buckle I got two years ago. (It's a very cool buckle, but still.) Am I any more satisfied with this experience than I would've been if I'd stopped after a single very disappointing lap? And if I am, should I be? By any objective measure--my time, my place, my position in the field relative to other runners I know--this was a terrible performance. Why should the fact that I was able to walk for several hours to avoid a DNF mitigate that in any way?
If you've got a brilliant answer, I'm all for it. All I can come up with is that I now have four tickets in the lottery for Western States in 2019. Here's to another opportunity to humiliate myself.