Coming out of yesterday’s race I really feel that I learned some valuable lessons for future races and for my training in general.  In the interest of those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it, I figured it would be worth my while to lay out some of these lessons so that I can come back to them in the future.

1) If I’m in a race, I need to race. Yesterday was the first race where I was alone on the course for long periods of time, as a result I got complacent and was definitely moving slower than I was capable of, how much energy I had at the end was a testament to that fact, as well as the story that my times tell.  There were no mile markers on the course but I was wearing my watch and glanced at it periodically as I went along.  The first mile was about 12 minutes, including several starts, stops and slow downs due to congestion.  The next mile, straight uphill took a little over 20 minutes, the next two about another 30 minutes.  The first mile and a half of the backstretch returning down the hill accounted for another 20 minutes, this is where the girl behind me caught up with me and I realized how complacent and slow I had been running.  I did the last mile and a half of the race in about 15 minutes (granted downhill for part of it), my fastest part of the entire race.  Yes, I was going downhill, but really it was the competition of having someone else there that I wanted to beat.  Somehow I need to capture that mentality and keep it with me throughout a race whether or not I can see my competitors.

2) Running, alone, isn’t enough.  What’s sore today is not my legs, though I am of course feeling the race in them a little.  What I needed to rub IcyHot on was my shoulders and upper back.  The trail running makes your body move around a lot more than a flat road course where you just keep chugging straight on ahead.  I need to get back in the habit of doing my core routine regularly and strengthen my body so that the running will become easier as well.  Same goes for hopping back on the weight-loss bandwagon.  I was doing well at both of these and then just kinda stopped.  It’s an ongoing process, I can’t just do it once and assume it will help for the rest of my life.

3) Training is the key. I’ve been really slack as of late in my running, and I need to get myself back on a schedule if I want to not hate myself every time I do a race.  Yeah, I knew I could finish yesterday, and even with training I probably would have still walked that steep uphill at the start, but I think it would have really made a difference on the middle section where it was up and down and my legs started feeling really dead.  I’ve only been doing short runs and my legs knew and I knew it and my time showed it.

Obvious, yes, but sometimes it’s worth the while to write something down just to make sure you remember it and to take that excuse away in the future that you didn’t know any better or didn’t expect what was coming.  Here it’s all laid out in the open and I either learn, or quit bitching.  One thing is for sure, trail races are very different from road races, but also a whole lot more fun, I’m excited for the others I have lined up for the summer and I’m gonna get my ass out there training and hopefully set a couple of PR’s while I’m at it.