the psychology of running

Yesterday I ran in my first 5K and it wasn't pretty. I have all sorts of excuses of course: It was hot and I'm used to running in the cool Colorado evenings, it was a very tough course (some runners said it was the toughest they'd ever run), it started at 12:30 instead of the usual morning start time, blah blah blah. It's true that those things played a factor in my crashing and burning but something else played in that I did not expect: My brain.

Now I've only been running for about six months and have never considered myself to be fast, just slow and steady. My goal was just to finish without walking. I had no fantasies of winning anything. After I checked in and got my first race t-shirt, I looked around and saw many people who looked less "runner-like" than I did and felt kind of relieved. There were, of course, the very impressive elite male contestants who let off an aire of confidence and seemed not to even see people like myself in the starting-line gaggle.




And there was the girl I met who seemed to think she was an elite runner, telling me about how she was going to go to Arizona or Alaska to run marathons soon. I actually passed her on the very first part of the first hill because she was walking. That did something for my ego until I decided she was just delusional.

I had run the course the week before to see how bad it was- and it was bad. One hill was a gradual mile-and-a-half of one hundred-foot elevation gain. After that there was a short down-hill jag and then a long son-of-a-bitch half-mile hill. It was also on a gravel trail that made it feel like running in sand. But as bad as it was, I was able to make it without stopping on my "test run". But on race day, it was a different story. As I came down the first hill, usually where I got my second wind, I took one look at the next hill and shut down. The Colorado sun was beating down on me and my throat was parched. I thought there would be a couple of water stops so I hadn't brought any of my own water and that had been a mistake. As I started up the hill, I looked farther ahead and saw that many, if not most, of the other racers were walking. But instead of thinking, "Sissies!" and running past them, I instantly gave myself permission to walk, too. Even though I knew I could do it since I had done it the week before with a hang-over and four hours of sleep (long story).

All the things I had imagined my first race to be went out the window. I run three miles, three times a week with no problem. In fact, I hardly break a sweat. But yesterday there was so much sweat pouring down my legs that I seriously wondered if I'd lost bladder control from exhaustion. I didn't walk for long, but the damage was done. I lost my motivation and just wanted the damn thing to be over. All the happy, upbeat songs in my iPod could not bring me back to the right state of mind. Not even the Hamster Dance. It was bad. Really bad.

I crossed the finish line where my husband and boys were cheering me on. I went straight to the water line and tried not to fall over. My time was 33 minutes, 44 seconds. Just under 11 minutes per mile. UG! My seven-year-old didn't help any by informing me that, "Mom! You were in 140th place!!!" He had counted every runner that came in before me and I totally trust his math. "Well there were some people behind me, too!" I pointed out, but that didn't matter.

After getting home and taking a shower, some Advil and drinking a few gallons of water, I felt disappointed but not heart-broken. After all, I started running to get in shape and can proudly say I've lost 14 pounds and can fit into my "skinny" clothes again. In fact, I'm probably in the best shape of my life. I'm still aggravated at myself for being influenced by the runners who gave up instead of the runners who kept up, but my older boys have begged me to let them run with me next time which lets me know they think I'm cool, even if I was in 140th place.