4000 word race reports

Every so often, I think about these volumes of literature that endurance athletes routinely churn out after every race.  I ask myself, which contributes more to the existence of these recaps, the personalities of the people drawn to these events, or the very nature of the endurance race experience?  I never fully decide on an answer.  My first inclination is that it's the personalities of the participants.  No doubt, lots of similar personality traits amongst distance yoggers and tri fags.  Yet, I've been passionate about competing in sports since I was old enough to throw a ball, and only yogging has ever given me the urge to write a detailed account of a competitive experience.  Of course, when I try to identify specifically what about the experience makes me want to write it down, I can't quite capture it.  If I think about a tennis match, it's every bit as interesting or more than an OTCY.  The physical challenges, periods of surging and crashing confidence, momentum swings, fighting to retain and then losing focus, gamesmanship, confrontations over shitty lines calls...it would make for great stuff.  I retain vivid memories of matches from 15-20 years ago, but never have the urge to write them down.  Similarly, imagine a QB writing a blog about his in game experience that went into the detail that you'd see in a typical marathon report.  It has tremendous potential.  Yet, I don't know of the existence of any such thing.  Even when athletes put out their memoirs, the nitty gritty details about the actual in game competitive experiences are typically minimal.  Only endurance athletes seem to relish that stuff.  Whatever, it all makes for a good shallow lunch yog pondering. 

Well, with such thoughts swirling in my head, and with the Carlsbad OTCY approaching, I was reminded of my very first race recap.  Carlsbad OTCY 2006.  I signed up.  I yogged.  My on-again off-again x-girlfriend at the time sent a random social e-mail (I didn't yet do much texting) that amongst other things inquired as to how the OTCY went.  I seized the opportunity to write my very first race report, which I was dying to do anyway.  I dug up the e-mail:

my 5k was good.  it was definitely the best 5k i've run so far, much more so than last year when i felt terrible before the race and was dead after mile 1.  This time I was actually determined to not overdo it on the first mile and I think that was critical.  Everyone just goes tearing out of the gates and I had to make a conscious effort to just let them pass and fall back into a comfortable stride. 

About a quarter of a mile into it I realized my shoelace had come undone and I had to stop and retie it.  I was pissed!  Then I got behind all these slow people and had to waste a bunch of energy dodging around.  But I think my 1 mile interval workouts really helped because then I at least had an idea of where to exert myself and really stuck with it.  I passed the first mile marker at around 6:08 and felt pretty good about where I was at that point. 

By this time though I started to pass all these people who had blown themselves away with their first mile and were already dying, which sucks because it helps to use people around me as pacers.  There was one other guy who looked like he was pacing himself well and I ran with him for the next 3/4 of a mile or so as we started pushing past a lot of people.  The 2nd mile seemed to be a lot of incline, but I still felt good and was passing a lot of people and was pretty pleased when I hit the 2nd mile marker at 12:22. 

I lost the guy I was pacing with and pushed ahead for the last mile.  I just focused on my pace, passed some more people, and really probably could have pushed a little harder but since I didn't have a good idea in my head of where the finish was I didn't want to give that extra burst too soon. I had a lot left for the sprint at the end and crossed the finish line at 19:02 i think.  If I'm lucky maybe my chip time will be 18:59 or something.  That would be nice. 

I feel like it was my best managed 5k so far, but kind of like my philadelphia distance run where i went out in 7:12 miles and came back on the 2nd half in 6:47s, since I had so much left at the end I know I could have pushed more out of myself.  I mean nobody passed me for the last two miles of the race!  I guess I'll have to just keep racing and keep trying and see if I can figure it out eventually.  That whole idea about joining a club probably isn't half bad either. 

Well, the next time I saw her, she told me in no uncertain terms that my decision to write in so much detail about the race was FUCKING. WEIRD.  When she asked about the race, she expected no more than 3 words in response.  And to think, her claims of having run a 20 flat 5k in high school (later discovered to be an exaggeration) were the onus for my initial dabblings with yogging back in Philadelphia.  I guess the personalities that gravitate towards high school XC can be very different from those who pursue endurance events as adults.  I think she ended up marrying a guy who does not yog.  Probably a solid decision there.