This weekend started very different than normal weekends. We traveled, to a race, but this time to watch and cheer. I won't even pretend that cheering is harder than the actual running, but let me tell you, it's not as easy as one would think! CT, our Superstar friend, and I were all whipped after spending the day biking and running.
Watching is fun. At least for me, it feels so good seeing a familiar face during a race. Hope it worked the same way for the people we were looking for. But, for as good as it feels not having to go full effort, there's this voice that says "don't you wish you signed up for this and you were doing this?". I ignored that little voice.
No sooner did we get back, when CT reminded me that the Run to Climax is this weekend. The little voice returned. It's been four years since my first time running that race. Tempting...
Broke out the new shoes for this race, going to call them the Orange Crush, with the sole (pun ha) purpose of breaking PR's. First time out in these shoes, they cut me. Been leery of them since, but today is going to be their first race.
Walking to the starting line, maybe the bad luck started with a few sprinkles of rain. At the time I didn't take this as a sign, it actually felt good because of how warm it was. The real sign of trouble started with my watch. Currently, it's been a battle of wills. My watch has been misbehaving for the past few months. It's a miracle I haven't smashed it, yet. Up until this point, it's never failed me in a race...until now. It won't even stay on for more than a few seconds and is constantly rebooting. My mood instantly changes to one of pure anger.
The gun is silent, or maybe I didn't hear it from the steam sizzling off my head. Already in a foul mood, I didn't start close to the starting line. CT continued with the biking and cheering theme from the weekend. At about the mile mark, I toss my watch to (maybe it was at) her, really not caring if it hit the cement and smashed to it's death. Not sure if running on pure anger would be a good thing or bad thing, but by about mile two I estimated I was in about tenth place.
While it would have been nice to see my exact splits from my watch, it just so happened that at each mile a volunteer was calling out times, so I did have an idea of how I was doing. But instead of some relief, it only made me more angry that I've been using that watch as a crutch on some level to monitor how I was doing. Honestly, I'm not this angry guy, no idea where all this is coming from.
Next came irritation that I shouldn't be getting tired. It's warm, but it's not like this is a long race. Mile three, passed a few people and figured at this point I could finish here and at least this day would be over.
Not today, the same people I passed caught me back and passed me! What is happening? Nothing is going my way today! It's been some time since I've been repassed and that by itself is demoralizing. While I could see them, there was nothing left to make a push at the end. At least, now it's over.
Or so I thought, the final trick this day had up it's sleeve came on the final results. Crossing the line, the clock read high 28:2xish. Told myself I finished at 28:30. Get home, look at the official results and they have me down for a 28:48! Obviously, not a big deal, but on a day when nothing seems to be going right and the root of almost all those problems being my watch screwing up, seems only fitting that I question the time they put down for me and have no way to question it.
This is my story of my terrible, no good, very bad day. Even with it being a fairly horrendous day, the Orange Crush did easily crush my previous PR on this course, there is still hope for them. My watch on the other hand, might suffer from a crush of its own.
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