Coach Terry: Do you want to race Bronx?
Me: No. I don’t have to race it.
Coach Terry: OK.
So with 4 weeks to go to Toronto Waterfront Marathon, the weekend long run was scheduled as 18M long run, broken in to 3 parts. 6Ms at 8:30, 10Ms at 8:00 and 2Ms at 8:30 as recovery for Saturday. Sunday was a Recovery Run of 4M. hmmm?
Turns out, I thought “race” meant “go all out, sprint the hell out of it and PR like no other”, while Terry thought “race” meant what it’s supposed to be: A road race.
Now I don’t mind doing a 18M then a 10M race, but being that I’m susceptible to injuries these days, I had to get Terry’s permission. Last time I didn’t listen to him I ended up with Shin Splints Round 2. Well, the answer was an obvious “um. No. Can’t do 18M then a 10M.”
After a bit of back and forth, we settled on 12M on Saturday at 8:30, then 10M on Sunday. Having no pace direction on Sunday’s race, and Saturday’s 12M being one of the most humid runs ever (I ran before the down pour) I decided that marathon pace of 7:45 will be a good pace for Sunday.
Rabbi, Bobby and Jenny from the Block was at the race. G-Man was supposed to run, but he had fallen to the Curse of Maharaja. The weather was almost perfect. It could’ve been colder, but the 63F weather was a big relief compared to the 90F weathers we’ve been subjected to.
I wished my team mates good race and entered my corral.
Now. People. Please be considerate of other runners and wear deodorant. If you don’t believe in chemicals and if you are crunchy granola “born-to-run” yoga vegan sandal runner, you can still wear the all-natural rock deodorant. As soon I enter the corral, pungent smell hits my nose. And it’s not even a hot day. Ugh. I can’t wait for the horn to go off, so that Mr. Sweatypits can leave me in peace. The race finally starts after some opera-fied rendition of the national anthem that is way too scary for a Sunday morning. Between the soperano voice and the tart, eye stinging smell, I am in censory overload - and not in a good way!
When the race starts bunch of people pass me and I try to practice being Zen. I have to keep my marathon pace so I tell myself it’s all part of marathon training. “Your time will come…ohmmm”. Stay clam, Pace yourself, Stay calm, Pace yourself. I repeat like a mantra. I’m Japanese, the people that invented Zen. This Zen crap should come to me like second nature.
But I suppose years of living in NYC has ruined me. I’m all Zen’ed out by mile 4. Something clicks inside my head. “ZOMG!!! WTF!!! I’m all FXXKING TIRED OF PEOPLE PASSING ME!! SCREW ZEN!!!!!” I’m like that GEICO commercial’s Angry Cyclist on the Brooklyn Bridge. “YO YO WATCHOUT WATCHOUT!”
I take a hit of performance enhancing substance and decide I’m going to negative split this b!tch. I catch up to Mr. Sweatypits so I pass him. He’s more pungent than he was 5 miles ago! YUM YUM! I zoom down some hill and zoom back up the stupid hill. I see the stupid ginger hair dude that pushed me at mile 2, so I push him out of my way on the hill. I pass some chicks in skorts and cute hair bands. A nice volunteer at a water station shouts, “YOU GO 1570!!!” I give him a salute for some reason as I pass more dudes. And before I know it, I’ve finished the race. Heh. I felt like I could do another round after getting my medal, so I guess that’s good sign.
Strangely, I didn’t see any Frontrunner Queens near me. Maybe Bronx aint their style? Although post race, one sat down next to me and watched me stretch badly. He looked like he wanted to ask questions, maybe he had proper stretching suggestions...?
Overall, I had a good run with decent numbers even though I didn’t try all that hard.
Coming This Weekend: 20M.
Coming Next Weekend: 23M.
AND…more on Curse of Maharaja next week!
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