Cowboy Hazel

Today's race was a disaster. For the first time in fourteen races, I didn't set a new P.R. The streak has ended. As you can imagine, I'm more than a little disappointed. Truth be told, I'm in a really shitty mood. What the fuck happened out there? This was supposed to be my race.

I was feeling good at the start. Tired and sore, but no more so than I've been all week. And when I entered the chute, I somehow ended up in the very front row. As a result, I ran the first two miles too fast (6:10 each). The pace still felt sustainable, though, so I didn't slow down even when I saw the times.

I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but the thought of running a sub-1:23:00 was at the forefront of my thoughts there early on, and I kept imagining how nice it would be to tell people that I had qualified for New York.

Well, those thoughts didn't last long. Somewhere in the third mile, I hit the wall. I slowed a bit, hoping to be able to pick up the pace again in a couple miles. But I never did. That second wind that's been coming to me late in races just wasn't there today. I tried to dig deep, but came up empty.

By the time I hit Mile 9, I realized that my "real" goal of 1:25:00 was slipping out of my grasp. At Mile 10, I saw that I'd have to really pick up the pace just to beat my time from two weeks ago.

At that point, my feet were in excruciating pain. Some pains that have been lingering for the last couple weeks really flared up and even began to affect my pace. Plus, I was just completely out of fuel. The unexpected heat really did a number on me.

I didn't even both to look at the last couple clocks. I knew it wasn't good. People were passing me right and left. It was soul-crushing. Seriously, I think I must have been passed 50 times within those last two miles.

I finally finished at 1:29:02, a 6:47 pace, over four minutes away from my goal, and a minute and a half of the time I put up two weeks ago (when I was sick). I grabbed my bagel, picked up my bag, and got the hell out of there as soon as I could. There's nothing worse than being around a bunch of happy runners when you're not one of them...