A 5K race report of sorts.
I started training with this Coach about 8 weeks ago. I was in a desperate situation. When I split with Mike, I needed some time to get my head straight. I had intended to take time off from coaching then go back to working with him. Things spiraled out of control so quickly. I contacted him and that was when I realized that we were done.
Here I am on 12/22, no Coach, and I'm heading into a *big* year. I'm doing my first 70.3 since about 2008. I have big goals that I want to hit.
Yet, I had no Coach.
For awhile, I considered doing the self coaching thing through the off season. I thought about that for a day. That just doesn't work for me. The off season is WAY too important to sit back on my ass and just do whatever I feel like. There are too many things that I don't know. There are too many things that I need to learn.
I know I wrote a post about my "interview" process, and how I made the decision to choose the Coach that I did. I won't bore you with THAT process again. The BIG issue was that I wanted someone who didn't know me at all.
Trust me. She had her hands full with me. She has been incredibly patient. I had so much baggage regarding my running. My relationship with running? It's complicated. Yet, she was never judgmental, always patient. And, when I had my emotional breakdown during my first race with her, she never showed any frustration. She talked me through it and was the person responsible for the Ceremony post. I won't go through the details of training. At each prior race, we had different goals. One week, I had to focus on pacing (not racing but pacing). One week, it was ALL mental....run whatever speed I want, but do x,y,z during the race. One week, it was the 5k was going to be run as part of a longer day, focus on this and that.
Today's race was to put everything together. Today, my head was in the right place. My pacing was in the (generally) right place.
If I had any doubts, today I knew for a fact that I chose the right Coach. For being in such a tough situation 10 weeks ago, today was clearly the start of something good.
We talked this week. I had my mental game ready. I woke up this morning with only one thought, "I will have a huge PR today."
The start of the race was -7 with snow coming down but not really accumulating. I can deal with cold.
When the race started, I had only one thought in my head, "Brain off, body on."
That was it. Pace Pace Pace BOOM.
Like I mentioned, my pacing was decent, always room for improvement, but I was going all out that last half mile. Whatever, I had left.....well, I left it on the course.
My time: 27:50. My first time ever breaking 28 minutes.
The most exciting part of this is that this is what I've accomplished in 8 weeks. My run focus is over, and we're going to be hitting the bike really hard over the coming the weeks in preparation for my first tri of the season in May.
I am so excited.
Let the season begin!