Because I race only six times a year I am always excited for race week when it finally rolls around. I was particularly pumped about racing the ING Philadelphia Distance run because I had heard so much about the event from my teammate Deena Kastor, who had set the American Record at the event a few years back. She always talked about the city, course, and event as if it was the perfect environment for supernatural running.
Even though I have had mixed results in my races leading up to marathons I couldn’t help but dream about hitting one of those special days when I feel like I’m floating on heaven's clouds. I was secretly hoping to run faster than I had ever run before. So I ran my last interval workout on Tuesday of 8 by 1000 meters with high aspirations for Sunday's race.
Traveling from Mammoth is a bit of a journey when the daily winter flights are not in operation. It requires a three-hour drive to Reno, staying over in a hotel, and then working out before catching an early flight to the east coast the next day. It was fun to travel again, especially since I was traveling with my wife, my buddy Josh, and my massage therapist Leigh. Traveling with friends makes the trip so much better.
The first thing I did in Philly was go for a half hour shake-out jog, which I highly recommend after a long day of travel. Honestly, often times it is the last thing I feel like doing but it is a great way for my body to adjust to the time change and flush all the junk out of my legs rather than sleeping with it and feeling twice as bad in the morning. After about 15 minutes of my legs flushing themselves out I began to feel really good. Before hitting the sack I got a massage from Leigh and indulged in a Philly cheese steak.
Friday was a social day filled with expo appearances and meeting other runners. Even though I am usually the one up with the mic giving advice to other runners I often feel that I learn more from them as they learn from me. The day ended with a special dinner for the meet organizers, sponsors and athletes at a Museum.
Saturday was pretty low key. I try and schedule as little as possible the day before the race, just a massage, run, nap, and lots of preparing my spirit to run. My wife had to leave for her race in Providence at about noon but luckily I had my teammates Mike and Josh Cox to keep me company and keep my mind off the race. One of my old coaches gave me a great piece of advice that I still implement to this day. He told me to think about the race a lot in my months and weeks of training leading up to the race but then the last couple of days not to think about it at all until I start warming up. A lot of waisted energy can be lost in those final days worrying, contemplating, and thinking about the race so I find it is better to do all the thinking well in advance and then show up and live it out on the race weekend. Easier said than done I admit, but something for us to strive after.
When I woke up on Sunday morning I went straight to my knees. There is no better place to be on race morning than praying. I don’t pray for victory but I do pray for a supernatural experience of God as I run. I pray to experience heaven on earth. I have had a few times when I feel like I have experienced it and that was enough for me to keep asking God to experience it over and over again. Its addicting. After saying my morning prayers I had my bagel with almond butter and Cytomax gel and walked over to the window to check the weather, which was perfect.
It really was the perfect day to run. I will never forget being on the starting line and looking back at the thousands of runners about to embark on the 13.1 mile journey with me. It is a very special time of unity that I think everyone should experience at some point in there life. When the gun fired and we got under way I went out at a pace that I knew I could manage for the distance. I was hoping to look down and see a fast split at the mile mark, in hopes of making for a special day, but seeing a 4:40 for the first mile I knew that it was unlikely. I went to the front and pushed a little harder hoping that maybe I just needed to run a little harder to get better warmed up, but again I saw the split of 4:40. At that point I knew that a personal best would have to wait for another day. Sometimes things don’t click perfectly and you have to set new goals within the race. So rather than bagging the race as a complete loss I came up with a new goal of forgetting about the time and practice trying to win the race.
By mile 8 there was four of us remaining. I decided to test out how everyone was feeling, myself included, by throwing in a little surge. I was trying to find a way to wake myself up from the monotonous rhythm we had established. The pace felt comfortable, almost like marathon pace, but whenever I tried to pick up the intensity just a little bit, the effort would go up exponentially. This is often the case when I am racing while in the middle of marathon training. Since I wasn’t feeling that I could maintain a faster pace I tucked back in the pack and waited.
With a couple of miles left to go I committed that I would make a hard move with a mile remaining and run as hard as I could for the last mile. Committing to a plan can be a good thing because it makes you surge whether you feel like it or not. It often times feels like it is impossible to go any faster but if you can find some trigger to change gears you often feel better when you pick it up. This is one of the advantages of running a course that has some down hills that naturally trigger a change in gears.
I put my head down and ran my heart out that last mile. I had no idea how the other guys where feeling and honestly I wasn’t thinking about that. I wasn’t thinking about trying to win or anything like that, I was just thinking about running as hard as I could. What resulted was a 4:27 last mile and walking a way with a victory. It was very special to win in front of the crowd in Philly. They were very enthusiastic and loud the last 100 meters. It felt great to get across the line. Mission accomplished!