I won! As my dad always says - I had the most fun so I was the winner! If they gave a prize for that. But unfortunately the only thing that seems to get measured is your time. And why shouldn't it. It's a race after all. I'm beginning to see why people don't race, just to race. Why they only like to do it when they can do their best. But I still had fun today, so this was still a good race.
The Monster Dash is a bit of a challenging course. It's much hillier than I anticipated. I tried doing the whole "slow down so my perceived effort is constant" approach, but there were many rolling hills and towards the end I just didn't have it in me. My hip was giving me problems again, but not until about mile 9 or so, which is better than Des Moines. My knee felt great, but I think it's going to be tight for a few days. I learned that when my left quad worked itself to the brink, my tendons above my knee took over and absorbed all the impact so that it why I've been having pain. I need to strengthen my quad. I think that is why my hip is sore too. What's with you quad? You're big and bad and supposed to be a menacing force, yet you are punking out time and time again? Ok - so I have asked a lot from you lately. Right quad, maybe you can talk some sense.
Anyway, my main goal for this race was to not injure myself beyond recognition. I knew this race would be a set back in my recovery, but this was it, so I thought if I just took it easy enough the damage wouldn't be too great. Um yeah. I took it easy enough. 2:47:50 easy. Whew. That's hard to swallow. It's weird. I don't feel bad about that time like I'm ashamed or anything. I still ran 13.1 miles and I did the best I could do today, but I don't like it to be written down. In the books. I didn't want it to 'count'. Well then, I should have run it. But I think I'm gonna use my daylight savings hour 'fall-back hour' for this race, so my actual time was only 1:48. I didn't invent that joke. Allison's boyfriend did. It's such a good one though, I had to use it as my own - but I added this footnote so it's legal.
I've been talking a lot about the run aspect, but not so much on the fun aspect. The reason why I had a great day anyway. I had a friend who ran a 2:15 for her debut half. Debut running really, she's done a few 5ks but then came out and totally rocked. Plus she won the costume contest. So that was fun to be a part of her day.
My friend Allison (Ally as bloggers know her) and I were Chippendale dancers. I was skeptical at first, but it totally rocked! We looked fabulous! I'll post some pictures later. I think I've got to get this post published already. But I had a great time running. I stopped to linger at the water stops. Ate my gel, walked on. Ran on, waved to the locals. It was so leisurely. As my time shows. But I enjoyed the whole dang thing. So maybe while the time is hard to swallow, it's one of those things where I just enjoyed the race. Contrary to what I was just talking about in the first few paragraphs. Am I running for fun or for performance? Pick one and then stick to it. I had fun, that was the point. No need to get all worked up about performance. A week later, I've let it go.
I fully recommend this race. Two very enthusiastic thumbs UP!
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