Psych Out

I have come to the conclusion that I psych myself out during my races. This should come as no surprise, because when I used to swim I would do the same thing...I would have a great practice and then choke at the swim meet.

I say this because this weekend I ran the Staten Island Half Marathon. Basically, my group had to do a 12-13 mile run this weekend and Coach Ramon gave us the option of running it in the park or running the Staten Island Half as a training run...meaning that we would actually race it but run it just like any other weekend long mileage run. I chose the SIH because I am SOOOOOOO tired of running in Central Park. I welcomed the change of scenery and (here is the stupid reason) I think all of the shirts from the Grand Prix Half Marathons have been kind of cool. I have the Queens one, and I wanted the SI one.

I think not racing a race is pretty hard to do. I mean, there you are, surrounded by people who ARE racing it and there's all kinds of excitement in the air. It's easy to get caught up in it. It's also difficult because they corral you by pace and my pace is listed as 8:15 (even though that was for a MUCH shorter race). Anyway, I decided to just take it out as a fun run and not worry about it and pay more attention to my breathing than my time (hard to do with a huge clock glaring at you every mile. I discussed my inability to go slow in races before the race with Eric, one of the mentors. I told him I was shooting for 10 minute miles and he said I should just go my regular Saturday pace: 9:30. I thought that was probably a good idea.

My first mile I logged a 9:15.
Mile 2 - 8:54
Mile 3 - 9:02
Mile 4 - 9:17

I have to admit, I wasn't "holding back" like I usually do during races. I felt a little blah and tired. But then, now that I think about it, that was probably okay, because that's how I usually feel for the first few miles of a long run. And I don't focus on "holding back" on those, but on keeping a nice consistent pace.

Mile 5 - 10:04 (this was because I walked through the water stop and ate a Gu. I decided not to try the running/drinking thing this time, because I waste more time recovering from my choking.)

Mile 6 - 9:08
Mile 7 - 9:09 (the Gu must have kicked in by now because I was feeling AWESOME)
Mile 8 - 10:01 (slowed down by another water stop)
Mile 9 - 9:14 (and that was stopping for water AND a Gu)
Mile 10 - 8:53
Mile 11 - 9:16

This mile had a big hill, which kind of sucked since we were so close to the end. To make it worse, this lady next to me was like, mooing or something...really loudly. She was obviously having issues getting up the hill. But even after the hill she kept mooing. I find it really frustrating to be running by people like this because they also psych me out. Because there I am, trying to do my own thing mentally to get me up the hill and even if I am making it through the hill sucessfully it is like their loud breathing etc reminds me that I am on a really tough hill and that I should be struggling too. I tried to get away from her as fast as I could.

Mile 12 - 9:36

It was somewhere in the middle of mile 12 that I decided to look at my total time. I realized that I was super close to a sub 2:00 time. I would basically have to finish my last mile in 7 minutes (ha!). I knew this wasn't possible , but wanted to speed up anyway.

Mile 13 - 8:28

Whoo hoo!

I finished strong, with a 2:01:13 overall (grrrr. If only I had been .13 seconds faster!).

But you know, if I would have been racing that, I probably would have gone slower. I've got to get in the mental game for this marathon.

Oh and one funny little story...
To get to Staten Island, you have to go all the way to the bottom of Manhattan and take the ferry. On the 1 train you actually have to be in the front 5 cars to get off at the last stop. Well, usually the only people that go down that far in Manhattan are tourists (it is by the Statue of Liberty) and residents of Staten Island. Add in a 7:30 am time on a Sunday (most NYers sleep until noon) and all you have is tourists. So when the 1 train was packed with runners like it was rush hour (standing room only, shoulder to shoulder) I think we really really really confused the tourists. They looked VERY overwhelmed. Especially when the huge hall to take the ferry was overcrowded with thousands of runners. I felt sorry for them. But I felt especially sorry for the ones who took the ferry back after the race with all of us runners. I'm sure it was a rather stinky ride.