COFFEE & BISCUITS

I did a 10k race today (about 6.2 miles), and I reached my goal — which is to average less than 10min/mile (My pace average 9:49 min/mile. YAY!). For you (Kat) who said that a happy person is one who reached her goal, that makes me a happy person, today.

Here is my race record:

bib number,FIRST NAME,LAST NAME,place,Div,SEX,city,split,time,pace
1675,ANNA,WONG,807,F2529,F,CHICAGO, 29:24,1:00:51,9:49

And now, invest in a good pair of running shoes, and then on to the next one:

MORE SPEED!

Kelly: In case you want to know, Boston qualifying time for a woman my age is about an average pace of 8min40sec / mile for the 26.2 miles.

More afterthought about this race
If you know me, you may wonder why I suddenly got into running, not having been an athlete in my 26 years. Non-runners don’t run for the same reason, but runners run for a variety of reason. My reason is easy to explain — just look at Forrest Gump. He started running after Jenny died, and he just kept on running. When I was young I thought Forrest ran because he is weird, but clearly most good works of fiction came from the author’s experience of life. He and I won’t be the last one to say that, running long distance for us is a therapeutic process. At some point, you just get up and go.

And now, I can connect everything in life to running.

Lesson: DO NOT LET YOUR GUARD DOWN. So this second race is very different from my first face. While it is shorter (6.2mi) compares to 10mi in the last one, I also didn’t prepare as hard for this one. There are times in life when you are proud of yourself for having overcome certain challenges, but then after that, you also became more complacent and might begin to easily slight the smaller challenges. And then you walk into those smaller challenges — underprepared. This is what one means when they say: life caught you off guard. The after feeling of under-performance left a bitter taste in the mouth.

Here, how does running relate? This 6.2 mile actually feels as hard as the 10 mile. The right side-stitch kicked in at about mile 4 (whereas it kicked in at mile 6 for the 10-mile race). Perhaps because I didn’t get any sleep the night before, perhaps I didn’t train as hard, perhaps I underestimated this race, perhaps I got complacent. I could have done this more beautifully had I maintained my training as before the 10-mile.

Regardless, the same lesson holds that, do not estimate any challenge. Maintain steady performance, and do things for the right reason.

When I was running in the race last weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed the music along the road, from start to finish. They picked the BEST running music.

Here is my list of running songs:

1. Lifehouse’s “Hanging by a Moment” (I love this song!)
2. Rolling Stone’s “Start me Up”
3. Katie Perry’s “Hot N Cold”
4. Britney’s “Womanizer”
5. Lifehouse’s “Spin”
6. Alanis Morriset’s “Ironic”
7. Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida”
8. Rihanna’s “SOS”
9. All American Rejects’ “Swing Swing”
10. Counting Crow’s “Accidentally in Love”
11. Eminen’s “Lose Yourself”
12. Pink’s “Who Knew”
13. All American Rejects’ “Dirty Little Secret”
14. Killers’ “Mr Brightside”
15. Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”
16. Matchbox 20’s “How Far We’ve Come”
17. KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I see”
18. 3 Doors Down “Kryptonite”
19. A ha’s “Take on me”
20. Ricky Martin’s “Living La Vida Loca”
21. U2’s “Beautiful Day”

Woo hoo!

So yes, I did it, and not only did I do it, I also did it ALMOST beautifully. My personal goals going into this race were:

1. finish the race
2. don’t stop running
3. finish with a pace faster than 12:00min/mile

I mostly achieved my personal goals. My first 6 miles were beautiful — I kept on thinking how well I was doing those 6; I was comfortably breathing, I was smiling all the time, I cheered whenever I saw camera men, I high-fived whenever hands were extended. Most of all, I was running — FAST. This is what people call “SHE IS ON A ROLL”. I didn’t even feel the need to stop at the aid stations to drink water — and I passed by 3 aid stations without taking a sip. My pace, which genuinely surprised me — was always around 9ish min/mile whenever I checked my fancy Garmin watch. This was really fast by my standard.

THEN, I had to pee. I took a one minute bathroom break. And then I started feeling thirsty. Then pain started registering on my right abdomen. Then my breathing became uneven. At mile 7 or 8, I was dying. But at the same time, I thought to myself, what a beautiful route this is. I know this running route, because I did my 8 miles last weekend on the very same road.

By the way, the music along the racing route was great running music.

The running got a little better as I got to just about 8 miles, when these passerbys started yelling “2 more to go!”. So I was picking up my pace again at this point, and several times I checked the watch I have reverted back to 9ish or early 10ish.

BUT, what made this an ALMOST beautiful race was what happened next. As I got to 9.5 mile, I saw this green banner sustained by two columns, so I thought I was reaching the finish line — so I went on a SPRINT. A sprint as in 7-8 min/mile sprint, racing past people, running crazily.

Spectators were gathering at this junction because it is close to the finish line — note it is CLOSE to the finish line, but not the actual finish line. So I discovered after the SPRINT that what I thought was the finish line was NOT the finish line, and in fact, the finish line is 0.5 mile away. At that point, I was like a deflated balloon. Basically, I felt that my lungs were gonna blow up, or more graphically, as if they were gonna be spill out from my mouth….and I simply could not run at all. So I just stopped. (Meanwhile, all the runners which I just passed by were sprinting to the end at this point…they just ran past me). At this time, I heard a lot of “AWWWWW” among the spectators, because at the end point it is usual for people to be sprinting not stopping!

After what I think should be about 20 seconds, I struggled back to the pace, running very, very slowly to the finish line, where my eyebrows were locked and intense (because of my spilling lungs), and a contrast to what I imagined would be this victorious hand-waving eye at the camera sort of cheering and sprinting at the end point.

So you see, it could be a 100 percent beautiful race, but that fake finish line tricked me.

However, I have to say, I am very satisfied with my race. The runners were just great. The weather was great. It was just an amazing race, and I am hooked now. Most importantly, I exceeded myself.

Here is my official race record (it’s on the website now)…total finishing time is 1:44:10…though personally I would delete one minute for my bathroom break in the middle. That makes my average pace at about 10:30 min / mile.

My the personal goal is to average 9:30 min / mile in the next long distance race.

Here is my record according to the race sponsor webiste:

Place Div /Tot Sex Name No. Ag Div St Nettime Pace Split Guntime
===== ========= ==== ==== ===== == ===== == ==== === ===== =======
5501 880/1222 2651 ANNA WONG 8768 26 F2529 IL 1:44:10 10:25 50:12 1:55:46

Rankings: 878 out of 999 in my age group 25-29. 5501 out of 7365.

I am plagued by self-doubt about my ability to do the 10 this Saturday (if you give me all the time in the world, of course I can do it…but this race closes in 2 hours and Chicago is known to attract fast runners…so I could only finish this race if I can average 15min per mile….yesterday I THINK I did 8 miles and it is the first time I run outdoor, and I think the pace is rather dismal, and now my leg is hurting in strange places). Anyway, here is something to keep me motivated.