At the beginning of a race there are no guarantees especially when it is a trail race over any distance. The Hat on Saturday was no exception.
The race covers a looped course through scenic park land. Besides the expected woodland trails, parts also cross open fields while there is also one section of substantial road to pound along. From our local running community we travelled down with seven other runners, two of whom were doing their first 50k. We gathered at a micro brewery in Delaware for a pre-race dinner, where hopes were riding high and everyone was clearly excited at the prospect of the next days race. In the morning, bright sunshine greeting us and despite a chill wind, the weather was definitely better than the rain we had endured last year.
The starting pace felt slower than last year especially for the initial 3 mile loop that had to be completed before we headed off across the park. The as we set out on the first large loop a group of front runners broke away. I was holding a comfortable pace somewhere close to the top ten and everything felt good and had settled in with two other runners, but after completing about two-thirds of the lap things went sour. We were running in a staggered line and came off a single trail section on to a road. As the gradient dropped something started to nag me that things weren’t right and suddenly I realized there was only two of us. I immediately shouted that there was no-body following and headed back up the road. Sure enough we had somehow missed two bright yellow plates indicating that the route turned off the road - I was immediately frustrated at missing it! Pumped with frustration because I thought the third runner with us must have seen our mistake, I tried to make up for lost time and began to chase people ahead. By the end of the loop I knew the rest of the race wasn’t going to go well as I was tiring quickly. The second loop dragged, I had waves of nausea and mentally beat on myself for getting into the situation. By the finish I even questioned whether I really did want to run the Slam.
Thinking about the day since then, I’ve been wondering about those thoughts and questoned many aspects not just concerning the race but also my thirst to keep pushing myself in similar events. Is it such a bad thing to admit indulging in a brief period of what might best be described as self pity? Lets face it I was able to finish the course some 4 hours a head of the last person and let’s not overlook the fact of simply being able to d0 the race in the first place! Since this morning I’ve received 2 emails from other runners on Saturday which contained their perspective of the days achievements. Later this evening I watched a news clip of a British man who despite the fact that he hadn’t grown up to be particularly active, had just rowed across the Atlantic ‘for the challenge’. Three thousand nautical miles in a tiny rowing boat!
To overcome most challenges there are likely to be moments when the final objective is clouded. I hope that Saturday was just one of those moments. After work Guth suggested going for a run. It was raining and the damp air felt chilly, I still felt tired but I knew she would rib me if I said no.
We ran a short loop from the house on the roads and strangly enough, it felt quite good!
