Is your glass half-empty or half-full?
It’s been a veritable petri dish in our apartment with Mr. Cane fighting dengue fever and my fighting bronchitis. With the team opener on Sunday at The Cherry Tree 10-miler, I wasn’t sure until race day that I would actually race. What I was sure of is racing once I stepped on the line. I was NOT going to line up and then pull out or make the excuse that I wasn’t well.
I needed to come to terms with all the excuses before stepping on the line:
- I have bronchitis. My time will be slow.
- I am on antibiotics. My time will be slow
- I haven’t done a real workout this week. My time will be slow.
- My head isn’t in it. My time will be slow.
- I just ran a block to pick up my number and I am gasping for air. How can I run 10 miles? Uhm, slowly.
Here’s every reason why it was great to race today even though it wasn't a great race:
- I have bronchitis. This was reason enough to be slow, so there was no pressure.
- I am on meds. It’s kind of like EPO. (okay, not really)
- Being sick gave me a taper I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
- I was so relaxed, I forgot about the watch, just listened to my body, and ran a negative split by about 80 seconds.
- I got mad love and bada$$ points for being out there while hacking up a lung.
- I continued the streak of bringing home hardware from all my races (Yes, imagine that a 7:01 pace was actually 2nd in AG. Go figure. Old is good.)
- Hopefully, the effort jump-started my fitness for the season.
- I felt really positive out there and was cheering on my competitors. So much nicer to want to pull people than crush them. (Let’s not get crazy though. I wanted to pull them in behind me.)
- I heart Brooklyn and non-NYRR races.
- This reminded me that how I feel before the race is little indication of how it will go.
- I got to bask in the glory of all my teammates running solid times and the camaraderie of it all.
- Lastly, I went out on date night (thank you Alex Nimetz!) and not once did racing come up. Had I pulled out, I am sure I would have been unbearable. And so a good day and night were had by all.