Race Day Fear that Came TRUE

The power went out the NIGHT before my race on Saturday morning!!!!

My alarm (that is plugged into the wall, mind you)was set for 4:55. But what saved me was my laundry. Yes, my laundry. Our dryer has a nasty habit of sometimes not drying things fully. That evening, I was doing my laundry, and had a few items I needed for my race going in the dryer. I thought to myself "if I should wake up in the middle of the night (which is something I rarely do), but if I should, I will get up and check to make sure my clothes are dry."

It was 12: something. I'm having a retarded dream that keeps going in circles and I'm trying to wake myself up and stop it anyway. My printer starts making noise like it's printing something and I wake up...disoriented, wondering why in the world it would be making such a noise. I made up some bizarre reason why the printer is making weird noises because I just wanted to roll back over and go back to sleep. Ummm...i love sleep. And then I remember the promise I made myself..."if I should happen to wake up I would check on my laundry".

I do the internal debate "The laundry is most likely fine, why would I even want to get out of bed?" But I am struck by the thought "But the sense of irony if everything isn't dry tomorrow at 5am and you had a chance to get the laundry dry...you will be sad you didn't check on it". So I trapes to the basement and in doing so discover the blinking clocks in the kitchen...ohhhh it was the printer turning ON that woke me up. Laundry is fine, and disaster averted.

Now because i'm slightly neurotic and having the power go out is a fear of mine I would have actually been fine, because I had set a second alarm on my phone which wasn't connected to wall power. And all would have been well because I have super cool housemates and one was up reading at the time when the power went out and got up and made sure I was up re-setting my alarm as she was worried about my alarm not going off for the race. The whole thing was not the best pre-race night, but sometimes that's how it goes.

So the race was a 5miler, but in reality it was a creative long run. I was slated to get there early so I could do a 4 mile warm up run, then run 5 miles at high racing intensity, and then a 3 mile cool down run. When my friend J and I got there, the volunteers had just shown up and were beginning to set up. She took a nap in the car as I did my warm up run. The area of the race was pretty rural and sometimes I have to laugh at running in the country as the mile markers are things like "big red barn on the left" or "set of cows that are eating on the right" or "tractor on the right". Since I live in the country, I do enjoy running in the country. The morning sunrise was beautiful, misty, and almost dreamy.

The race was a 5K and a 5miler. Basically you ran with the 5Kers for your first 3 miles and then split off watching them finish while you ran on. Someone was trying to make chit-chat with me at mile 2 with the comment "are we almost there"...trying to be funny. I'm thinking, no...i'm not at the 1/2 way point. I just reply that “it depends on what you are racing". She replies making it sound like there is no way she’d ever run the 5 miler and implies that people who do are crazy. I nod and smile, and keep on moving. If she only knew…

Being in the middle of a 5K for most of the race was pretty fun because there were lots of kids about enjoying the race. I saw one kid who I think will be a future Ironman. He had a Fuel Belt with two bottles filled with gatorade. I don't know where else he was also running that day, but he was PREPARED.

The race itself went pretty well for me aside from some side stitches and the fact my diaphragm was cramping and not letting me breathe very well. The goal was to race with a HR in the 170s. I had an AVG HR of 173, and a final time of 43:44, 8:44 min/mile pace. I was pretty stoked about that.

After the race I had my 3 mile cool down. As I came in after my cool down I realized was the last racer in the area (aside from my friend in the car)and the volunteers were packing up everything. The thought came to me “I'm one of those people.” I just did a 4 mile warm up and a 3 mile cool downs and then RACED on top of it. I know the further goal is a 1/2 marathon and the purpose of the race was for racing and times, but it did not destroy the fact that I'm one of those people. I don't know when I became one of those people but i am. Triathlons do crazy things to a person I guess.

It was a good day that even though a race day fear of mine came true all was well in the end.

In the future, I will always set two alarms and never feel silly about it.