My House. My F***ing House. - New Balance Bronx 10 Mile Mini-Recap
This morning I was actually feeling good. I knew I'd have to work for it, but 1:45 was definitely very possible.
I got to the race over an hour before it was scheduled to start. I hate doing that. But whatever, now I know for next time not to schedule the Uber (or Lyft, actually) so early. As 8am got closer, I got more and more nervous. Around 7:30ish I dropped off my bag and started heading for the start. I got there with plenty of time to spare, and lined up next to the 1:45 pacers. And waited. And waited. The race, which I thought was supposed to start at 8, started shortly before 8:15.
I had eaten my gel about 5 minutes before the race was scheduled to start (aka 20 minutes before the actual start), and set up my GPS shortly after that (all that was left was pushing the button). I was also drinking water, partly because of my nerves, and partly because I was bored. At one point I looked at my water bottle and realized that I had had about 12 oz of water already - way more than I usually have before a race. I felt like I was going to vomit, and while I thought it was just because of nerves, I still didn't love the feeling.
Anyway ... I eventually was headed towards the start line, and ... I realized I had to pee. Badly. I'd never used a port-a-potty before in my life, so I was about to have a new experience in about a mile or so. Spoiler Alert: Not a fan. But before we get to the port-a-potty, I have to cross the start line and start my GPS. Except when I go to start my GPS ... my Garmin has been waiting so long that it exited out of the activity screen. So I have to push the button again and wait for it to find GPS (which it did fairly quickly), so I didn't end up starting my GPS until at least 0.1 miles into the race, maybe more. So now both my time and distance are wrong, but thankfully my plan was to pay attention to the pace more than anything else, so I was okay.
When I got to the port-a-potty line, which was a little further into the race than I thought, I was actually ahead of pace. I knew that I was going too fast, but I also knew that I was going to lose some time from my pit stop, so I was okay with that. I went into my pit stop with an average pace around 10:10. I came out with an average pace around 11:37. Yes, this was early in the race so any stop was more likely to have a big impact on the pace, but that was a lot to make up. I knew I had to do my best, though, so I just went back to running.
But I couldn't. I couldn't do my best. I don't want to go through a blow-by-blow, mostly because I don't want to remember it, but also because a lot of it has blurred in my head. I walked a lot. I cried a lot. At some point either right before the mile 3 marker or between the mile 3 and 5k markers I considered pulling myself off the course. But somehow I just managed to keep going. I stopped at every water stop. At the third water stop, I took a cup of Gatorade (which I never do). It seemed to give me a boost, so I figured I'd do that every other water stop. I was doing okay, not great (and by this point I had fully switched over to 120/30 intervals, with some extra walking thrown in), but ... my throat kinda felt like it was closing up a little and breathing felt weird. As we turned onto Moshulu Parkway I considered stopping at medical, but I was feeling really good other than the throat, so I kept going. Stopped for my second Gatorade and the throat got worse ... realized it was probably because of the Gatorade. So ... I probably should have gone with nothing new on race day.
Anyway ... I just kept going. Running (and running at a good pace) when I felt like I could, walking when I didn't want to run.
I had texted
@jennamfeo pre-race because I was super nervous. She texted me back at some point during the back half of the race that I was doing awesome. I texted her back that I almost DNF'ed and I felt terrible (not my exact words), but I was going to finish ... and just saying that to someone made me feel even more determined to finish. I kept walking more than the intervals told me to, I kept stopping at every water stop, but I tried to run as much as I can, and once I turned the last corner, I just started running hard and didn't let myself stop. I wanted to stop, but this was running towards Yankee Stadium. The House That Replaced The House That Ruth Built (aka The House That George Steinbrenner Built). This is My House. My F***ing House. I just kept repeating those two phrases to myself and ran as hard as I could towards that finish line.
Official Time: 1:56:28
This isn't the result I wanted. I'm still not entirely sure I know what went wrong (and honestly, I don't know that I want to know what went wrong, I just want to put this behind me). But for the day I had, that time is pretty damn awesome.
(And I did somewhat enjoy the race, and would consider doing it again next year if the scheduling works out)
