Race Report: Team Nashville 10-Miler

AKA.. the race that humbled my cocky ass.

So, yeah... Friday I was feeling all high on my horse... that the reason I was running slow, wasn't because I am slow. No way... it's because I'm lazy. Which meant, in my mind... that all I had to do was flip the lazy switch off and I'd be back to PRing in races occasionally. And I assumed one of these such occasions would be at Saturday's Team Nashville 10-miler.

Folks, I was wrong. On both accounts.

It was a cool morning, so I decided to do a little easy warm-up to get my legs ready to go. I was able to get in 1.5 miles and then headed to the start line where I hooked up with Melanie and a friend of hers. I started off fast. In my head I was all... yeah, I can do this. I can run a fast race. And for the first 2 miles I felt okay. I kept telling myself... "of course you don't feel awesome. you're in a race. you're not supposed to feel awesome." But by about mile 3 I could feel that I was going to crash and burn and it officially happened somewhere around mile 4. I urged Melanie to go on without me, and she very nicely asked if I was going to be okay, etc... but I assured I was and told her to go on and get some points (grand prix points). She took off and I tried to keep picking up the pace every so often. But, it just wasn't there.

Around mile 6, as I was getting passed by men and women in their 60s and 70s, I thought about the last few races I've ran...
The Bourbon Chase
The Shelby Bottoms 15k
The Christie Cookie 5k

And there was a common theme throughout all of them... my running in them SUCKED. I've had dead legs, low energy, and ended up with disappointing times in them. So... my next thought was... why am I sucking at races this fall? I trained hard all summer with high mileage in hot temps... I assumed that that would only help me during fall racing season. Yet, it seems there's something else going on.

Something isn't right with my running, right now.

During the race, it dawned on me... I haven't ran well since I got back from Montana. And there are a couple of things since then that could be making some difference... (more on those things tomorrow).

I ended up finishing the race with a decent-ish time of around 1:33:18. Which is only 2 minutes slower than my last year's race time (although, last year I went into the race WANTING to run it easy). I also ended up being sore the next day (and still today!). Particularly the upper portion of my left quadracep. Booo.

At the finish line...

I didn't win any awards (obvs)... although Melanie picked up 2nd in our age group!!!!! But, I did manage to unknowingly get photographed a million times at the awards ceremony...

Sorry to all you winners out there... Sorry I jacked up your pictures with my squinty-eyed scowl.

 Although... luckily I didn't jack up Melanie's picture...