"Thank God I didn't look at the clock the whole race....if someone would have told me this morning that 3:56 doesn't make the team, I don't want to know that."
~ Nikki Hiltz, after winning the 1500 at the US Olympic trials
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| Checking my time. Running. Not racing. |
When was the last time you raced with the goal being to beat as many people as you can as opposed to running a specific time? Last summer I was trying to get mentally fired up for a local 5k. It's not my favorite distance on account of how short it is. Put it this way, I'd rather do a half than 3.1 miles. But, I do them anyway as I know it's good to get outside my comfort zone every once in a while. And I try really hard to practice what I preach. So, this one was in July on Cape Cod. The weather was calling for very high temps. Fine, that's summer. It's to be expected. But also for high humidity. Now this combo is really special. Basically you know ahead of time that the simple act of breathing will be significantly more complicated than usual. And, yet I still do these. For fun. But, I digress. Okay, so I already knew this particular race was going to be incredibly challenging. I was also coming back from a bout of mono last summer and hadn't greased the wheels for quite some time. So, overall, my confidence was not super high. I reached out to my friend and fellow coach, Halston Taylor, and asked him to help me with a race plan. In so many words he explained that, to date, most of my races that I'd done had been for time.
For this one, he suggested,
why not run to race? Don't limit yourself to a time. What if the goal is simply to perform? To beat as many people as you can across 3.1 miles? Why not try to be strategic and competitive and work to outrun your opponents both mentally and physically? It was an interesting concept. And he was right. I have rarely raced for anything other than time. More often than not, especially for marathons, a time has always been my primary goal. So, this would be a different approach for me and I was curious if I could run this way. For this race specifically, I knew there would be a lot of high school kids from one specific school that was nearby as they tend to show up every year as a team. In my mind, before I even lined up, I assumed these kids were unbeatable for obvious reasons; mainly the age gap. But also, because they're high school cross country runners.
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| Coach Taylor laying it out |
But, why?, Taylor challenged me. You have know idea who you're up against. There are a million factors that contribute to a good or bad race day performance. Did you get enough sleep, are you feeling under the weather, did you do a hard workout two days beforehand? Maybe you slept like a champ and Susie was up all night with her friends. You should look at every race as an even playing field. Make no assumptions. Go out there with the plan being to run people down or, if not, to make them work for it. In thinking about them versus yourself, you're taking the "me" out of the equation. You're playing offense as opposed to defense, if you will. And this changes everything. Rather than thinking about yourself and what might go wrong you're thinking about your opponent and how you can best compete against them. You're racing, not running. And that became the goal. I was going to try and truly race. Not just show up and run for time. I made a goal to pass five people in the second half of the race. The weather? It didn't matter anymore as we were all running in the same hot garbage. Even playing field, right? It's anyone's game. Let's do this. So the gun blew and we all set out. There was a clear pack in the front, lead by the same gal who'd won the race the year before and followed by a handful of her teammates. I ran in the back of this pack but kept them in site and tried to work off of them. After the first mile, I'd managed to pass one of them and was close to a second. I was hurting, don't get me wrong. But, I knew we all were and I was thinking about who was in front of me, not how I was feeling or what might go wrong. After mile two I had managed to pass two more runners. And, get this, I was having fun. Three down, two to go. I could see the leader and one more guy in front of me. I wasn't close but I was there and they knew it. In the third mile, the guy walked off the course and I saw him leaning over his knees, most likely overheated and possible getting sick. Not good. Are you okay? I screamed out. He nodded and waved me off so I kept going. I watched as the leader looked behind her to see where I was.
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| RUNNING TO RACE (& having a blast) |
We were getting near the finish and I didn't think I could catch up to her but I was sure as hell going to try. And, yes, she took the win, but it wasn't easy as it had been the year before. I had given her a challenge and made her work for it. And on top of that I'd passed three other people. So, in my mind, I'd had a freaking great day and ultimately accomplished my goal. I was pumped. And realized at that moment how racing can feel very different when you approach it from this angle versus just trying to run a time. I joined a local racing team about five years ago, primarily to find more people to train and race with. As I've gotten older, I've realized that I'm no longer as excited about running for time. As a member of a team, I'm running to place high and score well. Every point matters. If I can edge someone out in the last kilometer it helps my team score higher. I can honestly say that thinking this way puts a whole different spin on the mental aspect of the race for me. Sure, I'm still nervous. But, I'm also a hell of a lot more excited. And at this stage in the game, that's really what it's all about. As the great Coach Frank Dick once said, "Don’t look at the scoreboard (or, in this case, time), look at your performance and stay in the moment." Words to live by.
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