Losing

I ran a 5000 meter track race today. It did not go well. I went out with the lead pack like always through the 1600 in 5:04 doing fine, through the 32 in 10:15 about the same as last week then I hit the wall hard. and ended with a 5:50 mile. 5:50. Actually 6:33 for the 1800 but you get the idea. That's slower than my tempo pace. I did about the same splits last week the first two miles and ran a 5:20 last mile. I did everything the same this week. I don't know what went wrong. All I can think of is the workouts this week put my legs into a place where they were heavy. We did 300s Tuesday, 200s Thursday, and 100s Friday. I can't remember the last time I did repeat miles, my favorite workout. Several of my teammates were in the same race and PR'd. I was planning on running with them but I just had nothing left the last mile. I didn't give up, it was all I had. 

So what good can I take out of this. Coach Brian saw me after and said that bad races happen and this was not an important race at all so it's no problem and basically nothing's wrong. I saw Kevin and he had this little grin on his face that kind of said 'welcome to the club' and I couldn't help but be cheered up. It's hard to really appreciate running until you can't run. It gives you a different perspective. I remember those times when I wondered if this was it and I'd never race again. I remember how happy I was just to run a few miles. I was so happy in indoor to run 9:44 cause it means I could race. Today I did like 9:35 through 3k close still on pace. There are a lot of places that I've been were the people say "A bad day here is better than any day someplace else." It's true I'm still racing and probably the fastest runner climbing on BP this summer. 

Losing makes the winning that much greater. It takes one good race to make a season or even a career but it takes lots of bad races to ruin a season. Besides  we've been doing so many short repeats that I think the long drawn out pain I had for 6-7 minutes today will really help with the 10k. It's like a workout. It is a workout. It isn't the end of the world. The sun will rise again. Besides I PR'd in the 100m yesterday with a 13.6.