The Upside to a Bad Experience

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Shot down in flames! An arial representation of my recent half-marathon experience

Shot down in flames! An arial representation of my recent half-marathon experience

I recently ran the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half-Marathon. It didn’t go well! I was tired, slow, and wasn’t prepared for a road race. I bonked right near the end. I was about 15 min slower than my best half-marathon time. It was overall a rotten experience — but with a silver lining! Upon review, that I ran poorly was no surprise. Why?

  1. Two days prior I ran a tough 12-mile trail run at a fairly high elevation. Fatigue often peaks at 48 hrs after the triggering workout. I ran the race with no taper. In fact, you could say I did the opposite of a taper.
  2. I haven’t been doing any real road runs. All my big workouts have been on trails. I’ve only done short, easy runs on the road. This lack of training on roads speaks to the SAID Principle, or the Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. In essence, the SAID Principle says that if I want to be good at a thing, then I need to do the thing. If I want to be a good road runner then I should run more on the road.

I thought that since I had been running a lot that this would be an easy run. I thought I had several advantages: First, many of my runs have been over 13 miles. Second, Those runs have been of long duration. I spent a lot of time on my feet. Third, this race was mostly downhill with little climbing. I’ve spent lots of time doing hard climbs and running fast, technical downhills. Overall, I thought that my running endurance base would’ve allowed me to complete the half- in a respectable time and that I would’ve felt good doing it. Nope.

My best half-marathon time was 1:47 so I started off with the 1:45 pace group. Didn’t take long for them to leave me. Then the 1:50 pace group left me… Then the 1:55…  I don’t remember if the 2:00 pace group passed me or not but I finished in about 2 hrs. I was wiped out. Felt horrible! I ran too hard for too long.

Upon review, I think a significant factor is that trail running is typically much slower than road running. And though I’ve spent many hours on my feet, trail running is different enough from road running that some of the benefits didn’t transfer. Further, I believe that running on dirt and rocks was different enough from running on pavement that my muscles experienced something to which they were unaccustomed, and that caused me significantly more fatigue than if I’d spent the same amount of time on a trail.

I can’t forget the importance of the taper. Two days prior I’d slept in a car at a trail head then run a long trail run at high altitude. Thus it was entirely normal that on race day I was full-on very tired.

But so what?

This wasn’t a big race. It was just something I wanted to do. It’s just another run. There was and is no reason to fret and hate on myself because of this lackluster showing. What I’ve learned in recent years is that in “failure” there is always an opportunity to learn. This is an exceptionally valuable outlook! It’s a lot better than flagellation.