So Much For My Happy Ending

The Denver Half Marathon Race Report

Wherein I run the juvenile ‘happy ending’ allegory into the ground.

Given the lack of training and motivation that I have displayed over the last several weeks my goal going into this race was to run at a leisurely pace and enjoy it. Candis had hoped to PR in this race but given that we’ve been passing the same cough back and forth for the last few days it was not in the cards. Seriously, between the two of us we left more phlegm and snot on the Denver Half Marathon course than should be legally allowed. If Denver area runners break out with some kind of epidemic over the next few days it will be entirely our fault.

Candis finished in 2:21:00 (a 10:46 pace) and I managed a relaxed 2:06:55 (a 9:41 pace). This is the first half marathon that Candis had run without me at her side and she is feeling good about the accomplishment despite missing a PR. As for me, I thought about running with Candis again this year, but as is often the case I was more concerned with getting to my happy ending than helping her reach hers.

The temperature at the start was a chilly 50 degrees (burrrrrrr!) so we had to huddle together until the starting gun went off. This kept us sufficiently warm and also kept the other runners sufficiently nauseated. We ran together for a couple of blocks before I ditched Candis and went off on my own. Throughout the course I was a high-fiving, cheering machine. If anyone wanted a high five, I swerved over and gave them one (usually right after I had finished coughing into my hand). If someone was holding up an encouraging sign I thanked them as I went by, even all the people holding the “your feet only hurt because you’re kicking so much asphalt” signs which are both unoriginal and serve only to remind me that my feet are hurting.

I arrived at mile 9 enjoying myself and feeling pretty strong. Somewhere in my head a part of my brain kicked in to gear and ran some quick (and incorrect) calculations. “Hey, if you run the last 3 miles at an 8:15 pace you can still break 2 hours!” And so I sped up, hoping to get my happy ending after all and not realizing that my math was horrendously incorrect or that there were actually 4 miles left, not 3. My aspirations were fugacious (word of the day, anyone?) as I quickly realized that I would not be finishing in under 2 hours. I slowed down and went back to spreading cheer. Mostly cheer, with only a few germs mixed in. So much for my happy ending.

Look at these happy runners, surely they didn’t just post PWs?

Ooof!

Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon Race Report
Let’s play a little game where you guess why this race report is getting posted so late. Is it:

a) Because I suck.
b) Because it is deftly written prose with many clever turns of phrase and witty observations and it takes time to craft such beauty in writing.
c) Because I posted a new Personal Worst.
d) Because I don’t want to talk about it.
e) Because I was keeping you in suspense to build up my page views.
f) Because the first race report I wrote was so whiny and unbearably depressing to read that I just outright deleted it and had to start over.
g) All of the above.

If you took the easy way out and answered g) All of the above, then you’re wrong because b) clearly isn’t true. The correct answer is actually secret answer h) which is ‘all of the above except for b).’

Yes, it’s true. I put the ‘race’ in disgrace and managed to post a new Personal Worst! My time was 2:04:33 (9:31 pace). I won’t waste your time with excuses and explanations about why I failed spectacularly because I don’t really have any. The weather was just about perfect, the course was great, and I didn’t do anything stupid the night before. The only thing I can think of is that I had this Detour Runner bar that I was saving for my pre-race breakfast, but Candis ate it a couple of days prior to the race. I don’t even think she was running at the time, she just did it to spite me so I ended up eating plain old toast instead. Hence, the new PW.

There are a number of frustrating things about this new low, the first of which is that I’m not even sure I can put my finger on what went wrong. Somewhere around mile 8 or 9 my legs started getting really stiff and I just couldn’t keep them going at my desired pace. I even tried envisioning Kara Goucher, who is undefeated at the half marathon distance, but all that did was make other things stiff and further hinder my running. Perhaps I should have envisioned her running?

The second thing that is frustrating about this recent crapping of the bed is that it clearly signals that I have managed to get slower this year. (Perhaps you would expect nothing less from a site named Half-Fast.) This year I have run a 10K, a 5K and now a half marathon at slower pace than I ran them last year. One slow result is a bad day, two are an uncanny coincidence but three bad races in a year are a stinging belly flop into the realization that I’m slower. Join me won’t you? The water’s warm. I’m taking failure to all new levels and I can’t even argue that these results were due to tough courses because the 10K and the half that I ran this year were on the same courses where I PR’d last year. It’s like I have no excuse (except for that breakfast bar thing, I’m holding on to that one), I’m just slower. Fortunately I continue to get handsomer and handsomer with age so I’ve still got that going for me.

I’ll wrap up this race report here because I can feel it starting to head the same way the first attempt went (which is straight to the bottom of the nearest bottle) and I really am far too lazy to write it up a third time.