The mini...

On November 5th I ran the mini marathon I had been training for since September. I was expecting to finish in 2 hours and 30 minutes because on my training runs, that was the pace that I was keeping. Race day came and I was so excited. I woke up at 6am to eat breakfast and get ready to meet my mom and sister who were both participating in the 5k part of the race. I was physically and mentally ready for this race.

In my prior blog posts, I failed to mention that I had done a mini before. Last May I was asked, at the last minute, to run the Indy mini with a friend of mine. The longest I had ran was 6 miles, but my trainer told me he thought I could do it anyway. I did finish in May, but was not proud of my results. It took my 3 hours and 17 minutes to finish. I didn't take it too seriously and walked every other minute. My goal was just finish. When I finished, my feet were killing me and I got a migraine. It was a disaster.

I was confident that this race would be so much better and my time would be faster, because I had trained and was ready. I was ready to finish in, or around, 2 and a half hours.

As we pulled up, we saw other runners warming up and walking around. I was getting excited. I got out of the car to stretch and get everything together when my mom started strapping on her shoe tag. The shoe tag is a very important part of the race. You cannot track your start or finish time without it. While watching her put it on, it hit me. Mine was still on my kitchen table. Frantically, I ran to find anyone who had information on replacing my tag. Luckily, I was not the only one who forgot it and was assigned a new bib and shoe tag. Now I was ready.

Everyone lined up in their timed corrals and counted down the minutes until the race officially started. It was a cold morning (in the 30's), right before sunrise, standing in front of downtown Indianapolis. Since my sister and mom were doing the 5k, I was alone in my corral. The corral for the people who kept a pace of 11 minutes per mile. I picked this time because, just a week ago I had done 11 miles at about that pace. I figured, what was another two miles? I was trying to stay calm as excitement rushed through my veins!

The race started and I felt great! I reached mile one a pace of 10.34! That was my fastest mile, but stayed around an 11 minute mile until mile eight. Around that time, it felt like my legs were fighting against me. They felt as though someone had filled them with concrete. I was beyond angry. As I limped, negative thoughts ran through my head; I will never do a mini again. Long distance races are just not for me. I kept going over in my mind what I had done wrong. Was my pace too fast? Did I eat a good breakfast? Was it too cold? I had no answers. All I knew was that I had hit a wall.

I finished the race with an slow, limping, jog. Final time; 3 hours 5 seconds. How pathetic. All the training I had done was for nothing. A mere 17 minutes shaved off my lackluster time from May was embarrassing. I didn't even want to celebrate when I crossed the finish line.

A little over a week since the race, I am still disappointed with the outcome, but not because I wasn't prepared, but because sometimes what happened to me, happen to every runner. I will not let it stop me. This race will push me to do better in another. I now have a new goal for 2012. Actually finish a mini in 2 and a half hours. While I was training, I kept telling myself, This is the last mini I do. It's just so time consuming to train. Then the race came and, my own competitive nature has pushed me to beat my last time and to reach my new goal.

I now understand why people keep running half and full marathons. They do it, not only to finish, but to compete, and sometimes the best competitor is yourself.