Well, My Race Plans Failed – Now What?

A few weeks ago, I posed a question – did my racing reach exceed my running grasp? Could I race two PRs in as many weekends? The answers, we come to find out, are:

1. Yes.

2. No.

Drat.

THE BEST LAID RACE PLANS

Run Oak Island Half? A comedy of errors. As for the Wilmington Marathon? More generalized errors.

I could sit here and pick it all apart, but why bother? Some of it was not my fault – my water bottle breaking was a simple case of Murphy’s Law. Some of it was my fault – I did not nail my nutrition quite as hard as I thought I had – and I have taken this information and metabolized it; I have ideas for where to go from here. And some things will always come down to plain old luck – unlike the larger majority, I often perform worse in cold weather, and both race days were the coldest days of their respective weeks.

The end result is that I did not meet my goals. So where do we go from here?

REGROUP, REGROUP!

Well, there’s only one place we can go, and that’s on to the next!

First off: another stab at a PR, but this time lower stakes. I’m petsitting for my parents in April, and there’s an Easter weekend 5K near their house. I’d like to think with the help of my faster two-a-day runs, a 5K PR might be in reach. And if not, well, what the heck – all it took was less than half an hour of my time!

Aside from that, my race schedule is only lightly sketched in: I think I’ll probably sign up for the Wine & Dine Half Marathon, and then assuming I’m sent to my usual work conference they do a casual 5K too. There’s also an odds-on chance I’ll sign up for the Wilmington Historic Half and 5K Challenge, since it makes such a good long run before the WDW Marathon. Oh, and I’m in for this year’s Springtime Surprise, of course.

Another stab at a half or full marathon PR, though? I don’t think that’s in the cards for 2023… although you never know – something might fall in my lap. If not, no worries; there’s always next year!

I WILL GET THOSE RACE PRs

And I have a thought on that: one thing I’m pondering is finding a non-Disney Galloway-paced race for my next PR attempt. If someone else is doing the time intervals, then I don’t have to pay attention to them, which makes the whole works sound much more appealing. On a whole it seems a friendlier approach than the no-stopping-under-any-circumstances angle that other races offer. If you have any suggestions for Galloway-paced races, please do let me know!

If all else fails, I remind myself of this: I PR’d in Not Hurting Myself for both races. This may not seem like much, but remember – it is only by Not Hurting Myself that I can move on to the next attempt in the first place. In a way, you could argue that PRing in Not Hurting Myself is the most important PR of all. That’s what I’ll be telling myself, anyway!

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