Rough Spots

I raced on Sunday at the USATF-NE 5K Road Race championships, one of seven "Grand Prix" events that form a championship series for the association's open and age-group teams.

I've always maintained that every race is an opportunity to learn something, or at least be reminded of something. I've certainly run a lot of 5Ks in my life, and almost all of them faster than what I ran Sunday, but this race gave me a really good lesson on a favorite subject: surviving rough spots.

After several years at a different venue, the 5K moved to Westford this year. The race started on an uphill, climbed very gradually for about 600 meters, flattened out for a while, and then started a long steady downhill that carried us well past the mile mark. From about 1.2M to 2.4M, the course was rolling, losing a bit more elevation than it gained, perhaps. At about 2.4M , we made a sharp turn and encountered a long uphill that took us up to Westford Town Center, and a 400m flat stretch to the finish. Jogging the course before the race, that hill near the end looked pretty nasty.

We were packed in very tightly at the start, and when the gun went off, it was all any of us could do to remain on our feet. I tried to settle in to an appropriate pace, but felt jostled out of any regular rhythm. I also felt sluggish. I had been hoping that I would feel energized by the excitement of the start, but instead I felt very lethargic, and my running seemed mechanical. I saw a lot of other runners with whom I was hoping to compete well ahead of me and pulling away.

When we hit the downhill, my stride started feeling a little bit more fluid. I tried not to push, but rather let the hill help me with my turnover. I passed 1M at 5:22, and although I was still lagging the runners with whom I should have been competing, it seemed that they were no longer pulling away.

The second mile was strange, as I tried to maintain the momentum from the downhill without pushing too hard too early. I felt that my mood shifted from one moment to the next. For a few hundred meters I would feel strong and competitive, and then I would suddenly start feeling weak and uncertain whether I could maintain the pace. At about the 1.8M mark -- for no apparent reason -- I went through a real rough spot. I can't tell you why at that moment I started having thoughts of dropping out of the race, why some insecurity in my mind started whispering to me "...you don't have to do this..." I wasn't running too badly, in fact, I was catching people, but there it was: the sudden temptation to ease off and avoid the effort that would be involved in running hard to the finish.

Not bravely, but stubbornly, I kept running.

And then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone. I looked down the road and saw someone I wanted to beat, and got a jolt of competitive adrenaline. I passed the 2M mark in 10:42 and began preparing myself for the hill ahead. When I hit the bottom of the hill, I tried to keep my stride short and quick, and keep my eyes focused about 10-15 meters ahead, rather than letting them look to the top of the climb. In reality, I was running more slowly up the hill, but I felt faster. I passed my "target", and set off after another runner who was laboring. I passed him, too. I was working very hard to maintain my pace, but now the hill was flattening, and I knew it wouldn't be so bad once we hit the flat. I caught another group of three runners, and we all ran hard the last few hundred meters. Two of them beat me, and one of them didn't. My time at the finish: 16:54.

It has been said that in almost every race there is a moment of doubt, a moment in which you make the decision whether to run hard or not. Once the decision is made, the temptation to quit rarely comes back. I have found that to be true, and I have also learned not to panic when the rough spots come, as they often do, with quite a long way to go to the finish. My race on Sunday was a good lesson, and I'm glad I didn't give in to the momentary mental and physical discomforts and stop chasing my end goal.