Banging my Head Against the Wall

…some times things just don’t work out. I’ve raced long enough to know that you can be as best prepared as you can be and sometimes the ‘gods just aren’t smiling’ on you. Going into Ottawa I felt prepared to run well. Not at my best, but good enough that I would at least put down a decent time and be competitive. My taper felt good. My mind felt positive and the race went down (pace wise) as I was hoping for through the first 15km, but alas there are always things the mind can’t control.

Initially, there were two main ‘Canadian packs’ in Ottawa. One at 67:30 pace and one at 69mins. I wanted somewhere in between and got lucky through 5km as the faster group was about 10 sec slow. ‘Perfect’ I thought. I hung on the back and figured that there would be quite a few guys coming back (‘carcasses’ I told Ryan Day as I surged to catch up to them… and a good natured ribbing from him after a few post race pops), although I think they slowed down more than I sped up. I hit 5km in 16:09and then the 67:30 group tried to get back on pace, but I was content to run my own race. Fortunately, there were a few guys who also had the same thoughts and we formed a nice little 4 man group at around 2:16 mid to high pace. Around 10km though 32:20 (prefect I thought) my pack split into two(some blonde haired guy) and we silently worked together picking off guys over the next 8km. Back came guys from the 67:30 group and we were moving nicely as we both split 48:38 through 15km and I was feeling more and more relaxed as we went along. I even had to hold back from time to time. We caught a couple of Mizuno team mates (Rachem Baghdad and later Jerry Ziak ...Jizzy) and kept on moving strongly

But then the problems began. I don’t know if it was the food we ate the day before (we had a buffet style set up that had more watery style carbs) or a combination of factors, But I began to have stomach pains and realized this wasn’t… errrrr… gas. I had to take a pit stop in some bushes and lost about 30 + seconds and then jumped back in to ‘no man’s land between the 69min group and Ryan Day. Go with the 69 group (with Taylor Murphy and Jason Warick) or try to catch Ryan. In 20-20 hindsight I wish I would have been more aggressive, but I decided to go with the larger pack and re-group. At about 20kms I knew that more problems were arising. I was now tight and my back felt ‘locked up’ to go along with a few more stomach pains. At the half I made the call to pack it in. If I had bee about 5kms further I would have grinded it out and probably ran decent (as my prediction of carcasses over the last half came through). I hate moments like this…quite simply feeling as I was giving up, but I also realized that I made the mistake of ‘stupid valour’ in Sacramento and it only got me a moral victory. I was not looking for moral victories this race…I was looking for a time.

Fortunately, (well for me at least) Ryan had also dropped out at the half and we walked back to the finish line (I swear I didn’t know it was only a couple of miles away). And a few mins after we began waling our club mate Nick Best (who had also canned the last ½) joined us in our walk of shame. I hate feeling like a failure, but sometimes I also find this sort of thing gives one a swift kick you know where. I’ve almost always had great performances after bad ones (unless there is a legitimate reason for running poorly) and I’m hoping that feeling this way will cause me to be a little hungrier.

Jizzy was my roomy for the trip and I chatted with him on the way back to the hotel about some possible future training plans. I also realized that my training for Ottawa had also become a ‘grind’. I’ve always felt that to train well you have to enjoy it and I can’t say I really enjoyed much of the ‘solitary confinement’ of training for a marathon this time around. The question now is what to do. I simply want to enjoy training again and I certainly don’t want to leave the season on such a bad spot when I am in good shape.

When I know… I’ll let you know...Oh! and if you want to know the real story it wasn’t my fault they shut down the airport down Friday for 90mins… I swear it wasn’t me… then again maybe I have that much power… but then again that’s another story……maybe next time you’ll find about my adventures with Transport Canada, the RCMP and YVR ‘Port Authority’ next time around. It’s a classic…