Trying to Keep the Dream Alive

During one of my last track workouts, as I fell off the pace, I realized I didn’t want to go to CIM. It will be the death of a dream. I don’t want to watch it die.

But, if I truly don’t want to do it, I wouldn’t still be here: at the track, in the cold, mid-3K repeat. I would have quit already, gone home, gotten warm. Yet my feet continued to pound the track. I hadn’t stepped off, I hadn’t given up entirely. Not yet.

On the cooldown, I tried to talk myself back into fighting for this dream. My main disbelief comes from the fact that I have to run nine seconds faster per mile than I did for my last (and best, by far) marathon pace workout. As I drove home, I listened to Des and Kara’s podcast. (Highly recommend! Despite this next bit…) They were discussing first marathons and bad marathons and, if they were a coach, whether they would tell their athlete to go out hard or conservative. Kara, my running idol, said that if you had trained at 5:20 and the pack went out in 5:15 it would be dumb to go with them. “That’s a lot of time in a marathon.” 

Whomp, whomp. That’s exactly what I was trying to convince myself was not crazy. (For the record, Kara also admitted she’d probably go out hard regardless, because that’s how she races. Also, was she just talking about first marathons? Let’s hope so.) 

Maybe the way to tell how bad I want something is to notice how bad I desperately hold on, despite the evidence. I feared watching the dream die, but I couldn’t let it go. What was the alternative? Giving up without a fight? 

It wasn’t just that CIM would be the death of a dream, I didn’t want to go if achieving the dream wasn’t even an option. I don’t care about any other outcome. I could go for a PR, but even if I made it, I would be bummed I missed the standard. I’d wonder if I should have gone for it. I don’t even think I have the drive to go after “just” a PR, because that’s not where my heart is. When the race gets tough and I have to fight, I don’t think I would. Not for anything less than the original dream. I have to at least try. And if I fall apart spectacularly, have to drop out in agony, whatever, at least I will know I tried. I can miss my goal in two ways: (1) not even trying because I think it’s hopeless/too crazy or (2) going for it anyway and finding out for sure. I’m choosing the latter.

Once I accepted I was going to go for it no matter what, I had something to focus on during the taper: my mental game. I need to get better at arguing myself back into trying, to not giving up on myself, even when it seems impossibly hard. 

I had to come up with my reasons why this isn’t crazy. 

1. Sorry, Kara. Advanced Marathoning says it’s not stupid 

Back in 2014, I thought I had to hit goal marathon pace in practice exactly, but I proved in Pittsburgh (and again at CIM in 2018) that I could run four seconds faster on race day than in practice. I didn’t believe that was possible until I did it. Maybe nine seconds is possible, especially with the help of the pack. 

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

And just two days ago, looking back through my much-bookmarked copy of Advanced Marathoning (trying to remind myself of what race day warmup consists of) I instead happened upon a post-it on a page about how if you have a pack to run with, going out 8-10 seconds per mile faster than planned is okay. 

Which brings us to… 

2. The power of the pack

A lot of my confidence and hope relies on the power of the pack. In Pittsburgh, despite being unsure I could make it when I didn’t run that pace in practice, I ran alone. I still made it. I run all my workouts alone, even the half marathon a few weeks back. Having a group to work with, to not constantly fret over the pace, is a huge advantage I don’t usually have. 

With the OTQ pack in 2014

The benefit of having a pacer is well studied and undeniable; world records fall with pacers. The only time I’ve ever run with a pack was in 2014, at CIM, when I first qualified. It was an immense help. This time will be harder, the task greater, the pace faster. But I’m a more seasoned athlete now. Back then I had to take ten minutes off my PR, I had to prove I was an athlete good enough to qualify. Now I just have to prove I still am. And just take off a measly two minutes.

Now, about those two minutes... 

3. I fight harder for big, meaningful goals. With deadlines. (That happen to be this weekend.)

I’ve thought about CIM in 2018, when I set my current PR, a lot. The last 10K was ugly. How am I going to fight through that this time? And run faster than I did then? 

I talk a lot about having big goals and I also come up short a lot. But when the goals really matter, when something big is on the line, something that matters even more than a PR, I have an extra fight. CIM is the last day to qualify for the 2024 Trials. It’s my last shot. There’s no giving up in the middle and thinking I’ll be back another day. In 2018’s CIM, I was going for a PR, but the time was flexible (I wanted to run 2:38, or break 2:40, or just get a PR, I already had my qualifier secured) and so when it got ugly in the last 10K, I didn’t have as much fight as I would if those times meant something more. 

And finally: 

4. The trajectory is trending up

This year has been unlike any other. I was on crutches in January and yet somehow ran near my best ever by November. I feel like I am on the upswing more than ever, like my fitness and breakthroughs are coming at an alarming rate that I’m not used to. Who knows what I’ll be capable of on Sunday. 

....Still, it’s going to be hard as shit. 

Going into a race is willingly walking towards torture. (Why do we do this??) You know you are in for hours of suffering, of forcing your body to push through exhaustion and pain, or battling your mind as it goes to the deepest, darkest, ugliest places. It’s terrifying. 

I’ve been reminding myself that its only about two and a half hours of pain, after four years of dreaming of this, working toward this, running through pregnancy and the postpartum period (wishing I could be in this shape), of biking and swimming and elliptical-ing through injury (wishing I could be this healthy). Thousands of miles, hundreds of hours spent working my butt off when I could have been sleeping in or relaxing. In the grand scheme of everything, suffering for a couple hours is a drop in a bucket I’ve already filled. What’s another 2.5 hours? It’s worth it. Otherwise, I may spend hundreds of hours regretting I didn’t go for it, I didn’t give it my all. 

“If you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment a few hours, would you capture it? Or just let it slip?” --Eminem, Lose Yourself... mostly

I’ve been visualizing the course and the race. I’m reminding myself that it will be hard. The hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m adding to my mental arsenal of mantras and quotes and strategies to call on. I’m really focusing on what I’m going to do when I want to give up, when the pack starts to slip away. I’m picturing those moments, and how I’ll respond. 

“You want to spend all your time thinking about what you’re going to do, not what’s going to happen.” – Mike Smith, NAU coach

It’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I can do it. I am capable. 

Every time I’ve gone into a race trying to qualify, I’ve qualified. 

Every time I’ve gone to CIM, I’ve PRed. 

Time to try to make it 3 for 3. Time to try and keep this dream alive.

Keep dreaming big, 

Teal 

Race Report: Richmond Half Marathon

I started the Richmond half marathon thinking I might finally be able to get a PR, after five years of struggle. Not all the workouts indicated that, but I focused on those that did, and tried to stay positive. The weather was perfect and race morning (navigating the start/porta potties/bag drop, fitting in my whole warmup and drills…okay, some drills) went off without a hitch (a rarity). A perfect day.

I got a little panicky around mile 2. The pressure of the pace, the race atmosphere, the distance, often gets me really anxious early on. I don’t love that this race starts with a 2.5 mile straight shot down Broad Street—admittedly a weird thing to say because that seems like a great, easy start—but it makes me feel like we’re starting forever. Those first miles feel long. 

Somehow, I put the panic aside (turning off Broad helped), reminding myself I was right on pace. I was doing fine. I saw my wonderful family cheering at mile 4 and was all smiles (still on perfect pace). I told myself to break up the race into 5 miles, 10 miles, and the final 5K. “Just get to 5 miles on pace.” Nailed it.

I knew my 10K split from when I ran my PR here in 2018, because it’s actually my 10K PR. (Maybe I should have gone after that much softer PR instead…) If I could get to the 10K around the same time as I had back then, I would know I was right on it.

Instead, everything fell apart. 

First of all, I was caught by the woman I thought I had put away on the bridge around mile 3. Now I was in third. Then the sixth mile marker came. I had been running consistent ~5:55s. Mile 6 was 6:10. I cursed, loudly. What the heck just happened?

Here’s what happened: we ran the wrong way through the park. I suspected this when I looked at my Garmin afterwards. GPS watches aren’t perfect and mine is often off by 0.01 or 0.02 per mile, no biggie. (I turn the automatic laps off when racing, and press the lap button when I pass an official mile marker. This usually helps, since GPS watches get gradually more and more off as the race progresses. It backfired here.) This mile was 1.07, which seemed like a lot. Sometimes mile markers are in the wrong spot and a long mile is followed by a short mile, but not here. My Garmin map looked wonky, didn’t match the official course, and I suddenly remembered a sharp turn that had felt unusual when we were running. I put it to Instagram and yep: a lot of people ran the way I did. (Everyone? Not one person replied saying they went the correct way.) Many people had similar experiences to mine, they were on pace and suddenly they were quite a bit off. But of course many others told me I shouldn’t have let it affect me so much. We all have slow splits sometimes. Move on, get over it.

I didn’t get over it. 

I didn’t know any of that then. I knew (1) I had just gotten passed and (2) I had slowed significantly. (I hadn’t slowed at all. My watch shows that my pace actually picked up in this stretch.) 

As I was trying to figure out what the heck just happened, we also passed two significant landmarks: (1) the water stop where I had dropped out a year ago, with the rock where I sat and cried that I was officially injured and done for the season. I thought passing this would feel like victory, like getting revenge on an ex. “Screw you rock! I’ve moved on! I’m doing better than ever!” Instead, I suddenly wanted to drop out again. 

(2) The 10K marker. There were people cheering and a water stop, so I couldn’t see the time until I was right on it. Another cold dose of reality. Twentyish seconds off where I needed to be. 

This was a lot to process in the span of roughly a minute. Competition flying by, slow splits, memories of failure, realizing I wasn’t doing what I hoped. 

Next up: the biggest hill on the course. 

(Spoiler alert: mile 7 did not go well.)

Much later, when I realized that mile 6 wasn’t quite right/I hadn’t slowed, I berated myself for letting it get to me so much. Why hadn’t I just done what I had promised I would and put that mile behind me? Move on to the next one. Try to get it back. Sometimes mile markers are off. But I never assume mile markers are off (unless the next split is ridiculously fast: “Ohh a short mile, the other one must have been long, thank God!”). Almost always it’s my fault, I slowed. And so I assumed that again. (Also, here the 10K split unconsciously confirmed correct mile marker placement.) I gave up a lot in this section. Other runners were entering the park as we were leaving and I got so many cheers (thank you!!) but I felt awful. I wanted to tell them, “No, I’m falling apart, I can’t catch that girl, she just caught me. I’m not going to PR. It’s not the day I wanted.” This is not the attitude I promised myself I’d have. And when the mile 7 split came and it was also slow, I was not in the least surprised. 

Again, mile 7 is right in the middle of the race and contained the biggest hill on the course. It was probably always going to be a slow one. But none of that mattered. I was going dark. 

Mile 7

I did try to get it back. Told myself to just get a mile under 6 minutes again. But I knew my goals were out the window. Instead of finding a positive spin, a way to tell myself a PR was still possible, I was again thinking about dropping out. (“When I see my kids next, I’ll just pull over and hang out with them… Nope, not a good look, Mama. Gotta at least finish this, however slow.”) I was thinking about how I wouldn’t bring my whole family to CIM (something I had been debating). CIM wasn’t going to be the celebration I envisioned: OTQing out the window, PRing out the window. Down the dark spiral I went. 

I did at least, keep running. I finished the thing. And I did, with every mile, tell myself to get back under 6 minute pace. Though how much I fought for that, I don’t know. The only mile I did get back under was the last one, which is (1) the final sprint and (2) wildly downhill. I just glad it was over.

When I finished, a volunteer immediately thrust an award in my hands. “Congratulations, you were fourth place woman!” I hadn’t even caught my breath yet.

But wait, wasn’t I third? I said that, out loud, and not very kindly. “I thought I was third!” It was one of those moments where you’re not really upset at what’s in front of you (I don’t care about third or fourth). It was the time that crushed me.

I walked away and fell on the grass crying. It was over. I had an opportunity to prove my fitness, to get a PR after five long years, and I didn’t do it. 

It was (is) so obvious my goal of OTQing at CIM is delusional. I keep thinking about what coaches say about being realistic about your fitness, about not forcing a sport that needs patience, about not going out at a pace that is much faster than what you’ve done in training. How can I be in PR shape when I can’t even run close to my old PR in the half?

As I walked through the finish area, in tears, thinking about how all my dreams were out the window, my hope lost, many kind runners tried to pick up the pieces, strangers and old teammates alike. Charlie Ban, of notorious DC running fame, told me exactly what I needed to hear. “You don’t give up yet! You don’t give up til it’s over.”

Hang on. That sounds familiar… 

Didn’t I just write that on my own dang Instagram?

“But, Charlie/pessimistic Teal, I just ran 13 miles at the pace I need to run for DOUBLE that in a few weeks.” 

But … hang on, hang on. Wasn’t that Instagram post about how I ran a 7-mile tempo run at 6:08 pace and then ran more than double that (16 miles) at the same pace five days later? 

Maybe this was a final marathon pace workout! Okay fine, it was a race and not a workout, but I was still alone. Charlie reminded me I do this the hard way (all my training, even this race, all alone). At CIM there’s going to be a huge pack, all doing exactly what I need to do. 

“Get on that train and hold on,” said Charlie. This half made me think getting on that train, going out with that pack, was completely bonkers, a suicide mission. 

But. 

I can’t give up until it’s over. I have the taper to shore up my confidence and mental game. 

And on December 3, I try again, for another PR. Kamikaze style. 

Fumbling for the Switch

I feel myself giving up on this dream. Imagining the finish, the women celebrating OTQs, I am picturing other women, not myself. I am accepting how to get over the fact that I won’t make it. Trying to come up with other goals that are still worth fighting for.

This is self-preservation. My mind trying to have an admittedly healthier attitude to my goals. I know that they don’t matter, that my family loves me no matter what, that my self-worth should not be based on running an arbitrary time within an arbitrary window. That factors like weather and sicknesses will always be out of my control. 

In the words of Laura Green: no one cares. Whether I make it or miss it by many miles, no one cares. 

But I care. 

I do this for me. Really and truly me alone. I know it’s a selfish habit and in times of guilt I try to rationalize it (it makes me healthier, happier, more energized, a better mom, etc. etc.) but truly I do this because I love it. Because I want to see how fast I can be. Because I love that “holy shit I can’t believe I just did that” finish line moment. Because I want to believe in myself again. Because it does add to my self-worth and makes me feel good about myself. Because I love the training, even when it’s not going as well as I like. I love starting my Wednesday with a “medium" long run (what any rational person would call a long run) and feeling slightly exhausted but also fulfilled all day long. 

There are days, months, years where it breaks my heart. The heartbreaks have been racking up the past couple years. I’m desperate to hang on to this goal because I don’t want to admit my best days may be behind me, that I’ll never get to the level I was once at, that I’ll never line up at a Trials again. Age catches up to all of us eventually, I don’t want to believe it’s already caught me. But it’s been five years of struggle. (Admittedly, having a baby took more than 2 of those years.) And annoyingly enough, I don’t appear to be getting any younger. 

Still, I love it. I care about it an unhealthy amount, I know that. But I need to care, or I’ll give up. 

There’s a switch that needs to be flipped on race day and hard work out days. You have to think it’s super important in the moment or you’ll give up. The marathon is so grueling that there will be a moment where it’s overwhelming, it’s too much, you want to give up, give in, not care. Your mind is begging you to slow, even slowing your body down against your will. You need to fight back, you need to care about it like it’s everything in that moment. As ridiculous as it sounds, it needs to seem like life or death to push yourself to new depths. You need that adrenaline, that belief, that unreal power that allows someone to lift a car off a child. Your brain will seize on any crack in your armor, any speck of “this doesn’t matter.” It will compromise, give in, and give up. 

But then you cross the line, stop the watch, end the workout, and it needs to not matter anymore. Flip the switch back. Running doesn’t matter in the real world. Leading into big workouts and race day, the switch needs to be on “unimportant” or the anxiety and pressure will be overwhelming. Moreover, the switch probably needs to stay like that—nice and chill and comfortable—until mile 15 or 18 or so, until that moment of reckoning, or you’ll be too stressed to run relaxed. 

But… 

HOW?! How to flip the switch at the right moment? How to not care that much, to let it go, until that last moment? And how to run fast from the beginning—nice and chill and relaxed, but also fast—if you’re trying not to care? This last bit is the struggle I’m having in my workouts. Trying to relax and take it mile by mile and let the fast pace come to me… but when it doesn’t, and the times slip, how to stay engaged and fighting? While also relaxing so you’re not forcing it? I want to force it. It seems my only chance. But I know that’s not how this works.

Trying to channel this finish line fight...
even when the finish line isn't in sight.

If I put too much pressure on myself, I’m not likely to run well. But if I give up on my goals now, I’m not going to run well either. I wonder if my recent workouts going poorly is me giving up: too many years of struggle, too many doubts seeping in, too many excuses. My mind trying to preserve itself. 

The pressure I put on myself seems astronomical but it’s because I want it. I know no one else cares, I know it doesn’t matter. But it matters to me. I think I thrive under pressure: I need that do-or-die reason to fight. I can feel myself trying to let it go, starting to let it go, and maybe that is healthy. But the part of me that is still grasping on, knows I need to grab it with both hands and hang on like life depends on it. (Even though I know it doesn’t.) 

I need to believe or I don’t stand a chance.