Kicking ASS: Fanconi 5k Race Report

If you ask me how a race went (and I don't recommend doing this unless you've got some serious time on your hands), there's a wide range of potential responses, from "man, it was rough" to "pretty damn good" to everything in between. A race is just a race, after all. It's only one day, and most of them are just good feedback on your training.

But every once in a while, your race rolls around and you SHOW UP. Maybe the planets are in alignment, maybe you've just had an awesome block of training, or maybe you're just having a rough week and your need to punch someone in the face gets expressed on the race course, but when the gun goes off, that race is yours to do with what you will. You own it.

This morning I had one of those races.

It's pushing 3 months since the last time I raced. Since then, I took a break, transitioned my way back, knocked out a few 80+ mile weeks, and lost 5 pounds. In short, I am feeling GOOD. I'm so in the groove right now that I barely even thought about today's race this past week. When I did finally think about it, I didn't experience the usual sense of nervous dread I get when faced with a rust buster 5k, but instead found myself excited. Because I knew. I knew things were right again and I wanted to see what I could do. I wanted proof that it was time to train faster. I wanted to show myself that I don't yet know my limits.

This morning, however, I was anything but calm. I was about to jump out of my skin, I was so nervous.  All the voices started chiming in: what if I'm not as fit as I think? what if I give up when it gets hard? what if all this work hasn't produced anything? 

I try to stay away from the race start area as long as I can, since it's nearly impossible to avoid looking around for fast people and wondering about your competition. Because when it comes down to it, that stuff just doesn't matter. I will use any fellow human being to pull myself along in a race, but in the end, all I care about is covering the distance as fast as I possibly can.

But I digress.

At the start line of the 5k, after inadvertently assessing my fellow racers (see above), an errant thought popped into my head: holy crap, could I win this thing outright? I shoved that aside, but it was not a happy thought. One of the benefits of road races for women is that even if you're leading the women's race, you will still have men around you to key off.

About a hundred meters into the race, I passed the first guy and took the lead. And I passed him like he was standing still. The voices: What am I doing? Am I being totally stupid? Why am I running this fast in the first mile of a 5k?

There was no heeding the voices, though. I was out of there. I had so much nervous energy I could barely contain myself. I told myself to settle in and be calm, and tried to let the first mile pass in a comfortable blur. I quickly came up on the backs of the walkers from the 8k and 12k, which had started a few minutes before us (don't get me started on that), and I wondered if this was going to be a repeat of the dodging and weaving from Run Like Hell back in October. Please not today, I thought.

Despite my efforts to hold back and remain calm, when I hit the 1 mile mark my watch read 5:27. 5:27!! I was supposed to be shooting for 5:45 pace! You want a shot of adrenaline? See the number 5:27 on your watch at the 1 mile mark while you remember that you ran the first mile of your 5k pr in 5:31. I spent the next minute or two in a state of heightened alert as my brain tried to process what the hell was going on. Is the mile marker in the wrong place? Am I really running that fast?

As I rounded the turn at the 1 mile mark, that same shot of adrenaline made me fling myself out into the road. This race is small enough that they don't officially close the streets, and people are expected to run on the sidewalks. But you know what, race directors? I'll stay on the sidewalks when you wise up and start the short races first, because if you think I'm going to go barreling through the back of a longer race while confined to a sidewalk, you're nuts.

So now I was out in the street, flying along on my adrenaline high, and my race-addled crazy-fest brain started spitting these gems at me: what if the streetcar comes? what if they disqualify me for running in the road? will the guys behind me run in the road too or am I out here by myself? And where are the guys behind me anyway?

Just when my brain might possibly explode, I hit the turnaround for the 5k. (The course marshalls at the turnaround were not expecting me. Ha!) Then I crossed over to the other side of the road and....  silence. Now there was no one around. Every course marshall was surprised to see me. Maybe this is what happens all the time for guys leading races, but it was new for me. Usually if you're one of the women leaders, you'll hear a few encouraging "yay, first women" type of cheers, but all I was getting was a kind of stunned silence, with the occasional belated cheer. Maybe they were wondering if they had missed the men going by?

At first, the quiet and having the course to myself calmed me down. For a minute or two there, all was right with the world. I just ran. It was nice.

But then, as these things go, I realized I was approaching the 2 mile mark and things were going to start getting ugly. My brain started to panic in advance of any actual need to panic. My breathing started to get all crazy in anticipation of when it would get all crazy. This will not do, I thought, you need to calm down, Andi. 

This didn't quite seem to be working, so I tried it again, only I said it out loud, almost out of frustration: calm down, Andi.

And it actually kind of worked. Huh. Happily surprised by the effectiveness of this new technique, I continued to talk to myself with increasing regularity throughout the last mile. I didn't need any more calming after that, though, in fact I needed to get my ass in gear, focus and not get lazy. To fight back, in other words. So I came up with the extremely clever motivational phrase: Come on! and it's equally witty variation: Come on, Andi!

Every time I started to quit, felt an overwhelming sense of doom approaching, or thought about just phoning in that last half mile, I gave myself a Come on, Andi! in whatever tone of voice seemed most appropriate (disdain, encouragement, gentle nudge, swift kick in the behind). And it worked. I had some rough moments, but I did not fold.

About a hundred meters from the finish I was filled with an overwhelming desire to just stop right there. I mean, who needs the stupid last 100 meters anyway, right? I was flailing all over the place, trying, with little success, to pull a sprint out of my marathon training. It was not pretty. (Safe to say I won't be buying those race photos.)

But no one caught me. And when I crossed the finish line and looked at my watch, I was so happy I was in danger of crying, even though I knew instantly that the course was short (again).
Was it a really good race? Definitely. Was it a 17:10? Noooo. Not a chance.

I'd say it was somewhere between 17:35-17:45. But most important in my mind is that I went out and owned every inch of that race. And not because I won. I owned it because I didn't wait to see what it had in store for me, but instead reached in and took what was rightfully mine.

And the next scary thing? Trying to do it again next time.