There’s no doubt, you’re in deep, your throat is tight, you can’t breathe

This is definitely not the race report that I wanted to be writing about today… last night I dropped out of my first race ever. 

The week started off well with a solid workout on Monday however, I woke up Tuesday with a sore throat and cold and decided to trade in my run for sleep.  On Wednesday I was feeling a little better and managed some comfortable 300m repeats on the track and I thought by Saturday I’d be ready to race.  By Saturday morning I only had a little congestion and thought I was fine, at least that is what I told myself.

I heard the pace was going to be set for 64 seconds/400m which meant that with my current fitness I should just sit in the back and click off 65 second quarters.  I had no illusions of running 13:20 and thought 13:35 would be a good performance at this point in my training.  Because of my cold I rested more than anticipated throughout the week had a nice taper going into the race.   I split 2000m in about 5:22 and felt really comfortable. It was much easier than the weekend before when I split 5:20 en route to my 3000m.  However, things started to go downhill after 2km.

It always gets tough about halfway through a 5000m but last night it was getting really bad, really fast.  I fell off the back of the pack and came through 3000m in 8:11, about 4 seconds behind the next runner.  At that point I was really suffering and wanted to drop out.  Having never dropped out of a race before I didn’t want to have to pull the plug so I ran another lap while I decided what to do.  And then I ran another lap…  Finally another half lap later I made a sharp right turn off the track. 

Watching the end of the race, that I was just running,  from the sidelines was very weird and awkward.  At the same time it was really exciting as three runners ran 13:11 and Bernard Lagat broke the American record and I had great seats.

I hate that I dropped out of a race but I’m not really that pissed because when I think back to how bad I was feeling I know that there was not much use suffering out there like that.  I guess I was hoping my cold wasn’t going to affect me but it certainly impacted my body in a negative way.  Today I’m resting and I am looking forward to getting some solid training in the next two months before I race again.