Hi everyone!
First I would like to thank Susie and Kristine for their generous donations! I'm sincerely honored that you would support my cause and it definitely motivates me to continue pressing on!
Results are in and to be honest I'm a little disappointed in my performance. I promised everyone since the beginning that I will be honest and candid while writing about my journey and that's exactly what I'm going to do now. I missed my goal by about 5 minutes and, after reflecting on it a little bit, I have a pretty good idea of what happened. Here are the final results of my first race since I've started training and a picture of myself before the race started (I look so happy right?! lol):
To break it down: Officially I ran a 49:57:49 according to the timing chip (8:03/mile pace). That's wayyyyyy over the 45 minute mark that I had initially set for myself. Here are my thoughts about the race:
1) After talking to some of my friends, I was told that competition/races are completely different from practice. I agree with this because I had a lot of adrenaline rushing through me at the start line and I went out WAY too fast (6:30 at the first mile). A little embarassing but considering that this is my first real race that I've trained for since my foot injuries I was understandably excited. Going out too fast hurt me in the end because I couldn't maintain my usual 7:30-7:35 pace throughout the race. Lesson 1 learned.
2) I'm not going to use this as an excuse but since I had rolled my left ankle on Monday and had minor tendinitis I felt reserved and tentative this race. I was a little afraid of aggravating the injury so I probably subconsciously held back (even though I kept telling myself GO GO GO!). Although I had some residual pain in my left ankle/hip, in retrospect it really wasn't enough to hold back. The day after the race I felt great! I wasn't sore and my left leg/ankle/hip felt fine. I've learned how to listen to my body, now I have to learn how to trust my body. Lesson 2 learned.
3) After this race result, however, I will revise my goals for the half marathon. I will once again aim for a sub-1:40:00 for the half marathon with a dream goal of 1:30:00. I'm going to work hard for the dream goal for my own sake but 2 months before the race I'm being very realistic. Due to my foot anatomy I know I'll never be as fast as some other incredibly talented runners are but that doesn't mean that I can't shoot for my own dreams and goals. To put it into perspective, the reason why I wanted to run a sub-45 minute 10K for this race was because it would put me right at the sub-1:40:00 goal. Another lesson that I've learned from this experience is that shaving seconds, let alone minutes, off my times is really challenging and requires a lot of dedicated, hard work... Lesson 3 learned.
4) One important observation I made during this race was my running stride. I feel as if my current stride is making me a lot slower than I used to be. If you remember a few months back (before my hip injury) I was able to run 7:25/mile for 13 miles. Post-hip injury in May, I'm finding it very difficult to break through the 7:30/mile mark over a shorter distance. I'm considering changing my stride back to my pre-hip injury days so I can start putting up faster times. The drawback to this is that I may re-injure my hip by doing that but I have to try adapting to the situation! I'll keep everyone posted!
5) Finally... I know that without the support, love, and concern I'm getting from my family and friends I would never be able to do what I'm currently doing. This is one of the most challenging journeys that I've ever embarked on. Because I know I'm doing this for kids in Africa and my loved ones are donating to help them due to my cause, however, I am seriously inspired to keep training and keep fighting on. It's an amazing and humbling experience and I plan to see this journey through to the end and beyond :)
Although I'm disappointed in the overall result, I've learned a lot of valuable lessons from the race. I know that I have to work even harder than I'm currently working without injuring myself. I know that my confidence took a hit from this but I will fill that void with hard work. I may not be a talented runner by any means, but I won't let that stop me from reaching my goal on September 9th. Thank you for all of your love and support!!
Still motivated and humbled... Lessons learned!
Take care!! Feel free to e-mail me/facebook me/text me/call me with any questions you have!!
Marc :D
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