Gunshot: September 18, 2007, 9:01 PM.Today I set a new PR for cross country! That makes the third time I've set a new PR the first home meet of a new season. My first year of XC, my sophomore year, at the first official XC race of my entire life, which happened to be a home meet, I set a time of 21:33. That remained my PR until the first meet of my junior year. Again, it was a home meet, and I PRed. I forget the time, but probably because that year, I broke my PR two more times. My final PR last season was a 19:58, my first sub-20.This season, I finally bought running shoes. In the past, I'd always used cross-trainers or tennis shoes - wrong shoes that were already too worn-down. This year I finally figured out what running shoes are and bought a pair. My first race this season was the Randolph Invitational. Not a standard meet where everyone runs. Only varsity ran. I forgot my new running shoes. I died towards the end. My time was better than either of the two time trials we did over the summer, but I felt awful. I had no strength left for a final push at the end like I usually do. I finished last of the seven varsity boys for our team. Ehn, all right, first race of the season, a 21:23, not bad. Hey, it still beats first ever XC race time/PR. So it does suggest I'm improving. The next day, I run in the Hanover Township 5K Race for the first time in my life. I wear my running shoes :-). Finally, a course that doesn't involve repeating a loop. Five kilometers of original course - five kilometers of pavement, 100%. Pavement means greater coefficient of friction, faster pace, a better run. See, this was a fun race. My mindset: I donate $10 to the community and get a nice shirt, some refreshments, and the opportunity to run a 5K. So it's not like I went all out and spilled a trail of blood. I felt no pressure (well, at least it was the limit as x approaches 0 (Hmm, I wonder if you can approach 0 from the left? Would negative pressure be encouragement and support?) of pressure) and I was excited to run a course that didn't repeat itself and one I wasn't walked/jogged through before the race start (I was only shown a map.). It was a wonderful feeling! Psychologically, I was psyched and prepared because I knew I wasn't going to push myself to dying that day. The race was going to be almost like a jog...with company! So I ran it, still ending up running it at least 90-95%, but crossing the finish feeling quite refreshed and with plenty of energy to spare. I still haven't found out my exact time, but it was at least a 21:20 - faster than I ran the Randolph race the previous night. Wow, I finally started appreciating the wonders of proper running shoes. Amazing! But there was more appreciation to come. Between that race (9/8/07) and today's race, during every practice, I used an old pair of cross trainers. I had to work much harder and push myself to keep up a good pace. Personally, I thought I had simply peaked for the season and was already deteriorating. I thought the rest of the team was improving while I was getting fatter and cardiovascularly unfit. I felt awful, physically and psychologically. Over the past weekend, I opted not to run on Saturday in order to go to band practice, the only one of the five band/XC doublers to do so. When I came back to practice Monday, I felt so degenerated from a weekend of no running (it essentially consisted of work at Staples and reading the book One Hundred Years of Solitude for Spanish). I felt fatter, flabby, totally out-of-it. I didn't feel confident about today's race. But some time before the start of yesterday's practice and today's meet, I underwent a psychological change. Yesterday's "light" run - three neighborhoods (How long is a neighborhood? Agh, this question has been drifting in my head for a while now. I've heard that it's less than a mile, about a mile, between a mile and 1.2 miles, 1.4 miles, and 1.6 miles. Personally, I think it's 1.2 miles.) - was 3.6 miles long, half a mile longer than a course run. We did it at a moderate pace. I felt good. Psychologically, I thought since I ran a longer distance, 3.1 miles isn't so bad. It's shorter, so I can push myself harder and still expend the same amount of energy as for 3.6 miles. And for the 3.6 miles, it was a good moderate pace and I didn't feel the dying sensation, so heck I could certainly do 3.1 miles pushing a little. So I ate properly today - lots of carbohydrates, no Frito-Lay snacks, not skipping lunch, drinking lots of water - and I put on my running shoes for our first home meet. And I spent quite some time before the race prepping mentally. It seems at away meets, I always let slip, "Oh God, I'm really nervous; I'm not going to run well today; I'm going to burn out during the race and die (the dead-tired sensation)." I fear the dead-tired feeling. I'm afraid to push myself, being a very pain-intolerant person. I fear the pain will beat me. Then I always think a lot about the time length of the race. The top (insane) people finish between 15 and 17 minutes. The good people come in sub-18 and sub-19. I've never ran over a 23. In 25 minutes, the race is over. So the longest case scenario is about a 22. I think, man, running for 22 minutes, how can I push myself for so long? How do I not get bored? How does one not burn out? 22 minutes of swinging one leg in front of the other. 22 minutes of traversing terrain and through scenery that you can't even really enjoy or appreciate because your legs and lungs are ablaze and you're channeling every ounce of energy through your will not to quit, not to humiliate yourself by having to stop and walk. Thinking of 22 minutes that way, it seems like such a long time. I just think about 22 minutes of sitting around, or 22 minutes of standing around or waiting in line. The time passes pretty slowly. It's very long and tedious and boring. Who would want to do something for 22 minutes non-stop with no conversation and very little company? Just think about those times when you're wondering when class is going to end and you realize there's still 22 minutes left. You're probably just like "AGH AGH AGH" in your mind, like you're going to go crazy. It's like forever. And here I am needing to push myself and focus through 22 minutes and I'm just imagining myself five minutes in (when all the freshness is gone, all my initial crisp energy is used) on the first loop and starting to feel tired and mentally breaking down thinking about the two more repetitions of the loop that I still have to do and the fifteen+ minutes that still lay ahead of me. I imagine this stuck-in-the-middle of a race situation, one I can't really quit in the middle and that I have to finish and I'm just like, waah, I don't want to do this. I get scared. And on away courses, it's more scary because you don't know the course inside-out. You don't really have a good feel for how long sections of the course are, how far from the finish you are. You start running it and you get tired and you just pass the 1-mile mark when you're starting to feel it and you're just like oh-my-gosh, two more miles, how can I do this? You mentally break down, and it only exacerbates your physical weariness. But there's something magical about home meets. You've run the course countless times. You know exactly where you are during the run. You can picture the remainder of the course as you run. You can see the course projected in your mind like a hologram - you can see your progress being traced and you can imagine a progress bar that displays X% done. You know where fatigue starts kicking in and where you need to pick up the pace and where that huge hill is and how to tackle it: the mentality, the stride, the pace to use up it. You're confident because you feel in absolute control with your in-depth knowledge and experience of the course. Then there's the magic of being at your school. You feel in a comfortable and relaxed environment. You know where everything is. The grounds look so familiar to you. The buildings do, too. And of course, the people. Most of the other sports are practicing, too, and you know the other athletes and they cheer you on. The majority of the fans are WP fans and you can feel all the support thrown out. Maybe subconsciously you remember all your other accomplishments that have occurred here. That one impossible test you beasted. Other amazing athletic achievements. That awesome concert. Some spectacular project that you invested way too many hours on but turned out so successful that it was all worth it. I think this subconscience gives you a mental and physical boost. You feel part of the magic that's occurred here before. So today I never said I was feeling like I would do bad or that I was afraid. I shut out the negative thoughts and the what-ifs?. I approached the race with an outlook that it would be an opportunity to push myself and break a PR. I would focus through the pain and think rationally in those painful moments and decide very firmly to push myself, maintain a pace, and step it up when I needed to. Mentally, I overcame the daunting statistic of 22 minutes. 22 minutes passes in a snap when you're caught up in a stimulating but complicated mathematical problem or solving cube after cube or playing beautiful music. Time really flies by when you think about it. I'm already a senior in high school and I look back and there's things I wished I did differently. A year doesn't seem so long anymore. I'll go to college, I'll graduate, I'll become an adult and start and raise a family, I'll become middle aged, I'll get old with persistent pains in my body, and then I'll die. And then you're just like, 22 minutes, that's nothing. Bring it on. And so I was confident and ready and braced for this race. The magic of a home meet always stirs such sentiments and I always do well, usually PRing. I got a 19:43, my new PR and my second ever sub-20, finishing 11th overall and 3rd for WP. So I feel back in this sport, up to par with my teammates once more. It's races like these that make me excited about cross country, happy to be doing it, determined to work hard and push hard and psyched to run my next race, ready to battle those hard times. Now I hope to start applying my home meet mentality to away meets. And thus I'm well into the 2007 Whippany Park High School cross country season. Burst through the finish: September 18, 2007, 10:37 PM. |