Worst. Race. EVER. – Just Run Series

At first, this may seem like a terribly negative topic for this month’s Just Run series – the worst race ever. And yes, you will hear tales of woe about terrible conditions, how everything went wrong, and pain, pain, pain. But here’s the thing about a no-good, terrible race…if you can learn from it, it will only make you a better runner and racer. And strangely enough, one of my worst races ever (yes, I have two that tied for the title!) has now, 4 years later, become the race I am most proud of, the one I learned most from.

Just in case you’ve missed the previous posts for the Just Run series this year, here are January and February:

Tips for Beginner Runners

Instagram Tips and Tricks for Runners

And check out our archives of tons of running tips and workouts from our 2017 Run It series here, and our 2016 Workouts for Runners Series here.

Ready for those tales of woe (and redemption)? Let’s go!

 

If you’ve been racing long enough, you have one. One of those races that just fell apart, or made you fall apart. A worst race ever. I have two that I proclaimed to be my worst race ever. One still holds that title in my racing history, but the other one I now think back on as probably the best I’ve ever run, and I am still to this day learning from my experience in training for that race, and what happened on the day. So, let’s start with the one that was just terrible.

If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you know I’m going to tell you it was the Vermont City Marathon in 2016. If you want ALL the brutal details, you can read my recap here. But, in a nutshell, the conditions on the day of the race were so bad that everyone lining up for that race KNEW it was going to suck. It was 90 degrees at the start of the race, and it was humid. At 8 in the morning, with not a cloud in the sky, we all knew this was the coolest we would feel during the 26.2 miles.

I had a modest goal (more on that later), but as soon as I started I knew I’d need to add at least half an hour overall time to my goal, and by 3 miles in I knew I needed to switch to aiming to finish without getting heatstroke. It felt like I was running in a pain cave, through a hot soup for most of the time I was running. At one point I got to a refreshment stand and they had run out of water, and I had to work hard to fight back panic. I won’t give you a full recap over again, but suffice to say the conditions reached the point where the organizers had to issue a black flag and shuttle everyone left on the course to the finish area. I was at about mile 21. 

Why was it the worst race ever?

Conditions. And conditions are one aspect of racing you do not have control over. It had been hot for a few days prior to that race, and while my opinion is the organizers should have moved the start time up an hour, and increased their water and electrolyte drink supply, as well as rustled up more volunteers, there’s nothing we as runners can do to make that happen.

How could I have prepared better?

If you know conditions are going to be harsh, you can train for them – for example, doing some training runs in heat if you know the race will be in a hot or tropical area, or doing some altitude runs as part of training if your race is well above sea level. This particular experience was difficult, because the hot weather was unexpected (we had a few days warning it was going to be bad, but nothing I could have trained for). 

What did I learn from it?

This race made me realize how important it is to have sliding scale goals – you have probably heard of them as A goal, B goal, C goal. I’ve heard runners argue that having a B and a C goal is just preparing for failure, but pushing yourself for one ideal goal through bad conditions is a great way of getting sick, injured, or worse. My A goal for this race was to finish under 4:30. My B goal was under 5 hours. And my C goal was to finish.

It was also just a bad training cycle for me – I was realistically biting off more than I could chew so soon after my second child’s birth, and personal issues during the training season meant my performance suffered. So yes, I think I did set myself up for failure from the start, but everything about that race was terrible – so bad, in fact, that I would never sign up for it again, even if the weather conditions could be guaranteed.

Ugh. That race sucked. Let’s move on…to another race that sucked! 

Okay, my other worst race ever was one I absolutely ran my heart out in. The Brooklyn Half Marathon in 2014.

Why was it the worst race ever?

I had been training for this race for a loooong time. I hired a running coach the November before, determined to hit a half marathon dream goal of 1:45 (my PR at that time was 1:53 and change). I trained through an arctic temperature winter. I ran workouts that made me dry heave. I hit paces I didn’t know I had in me. I was chastised (a lot) by my coach for running long and recovery runs too hard. I dialed it back. I gave this goal everything.

And I failed. And it hurt.

You can read my recap here, and it’s interesting when I re-read it to see how quickly I was able to bounce back from that failure. I think it was because I had the Covered Bridges Half Marathon coming up two weeks later, and after Brooklyn, I was secretly hoping the training effect would mean redemption in Vermont. The picture above shows me soon after I crossed the finish line. I was so done. I felt sick, I was in pain, I’d been crying. I couldn’t look up at the camera yet because I was having a massive pity party (and I was trying not to throw up).

Now, this photo is about 10 minutes later. I’m smiling again. I’m holding a very small Roman. I think I knew already, that even though I didn’t make my PR goal, I absolutely gave that race everything I had, and I ran the best I could. I knew I could be proud of what I accomplished.

How could I have prepared better?

I want to say, “I couldn’t,” because in terms of training, nutrition, strength training, everything physical, I did everything right. I will say that this is the race that made me realize how vital mental training techniques are for racing. The part where it fell apart for me was a stretch of the race that I knew was tough mentally – it’s a long, long straight road with little spectators and nothing interesting to look at. Even though I knew it would be hard, I just didn’t have the mental tactics up my sleeve to be able to combat that. 

What did I learn from it?

Since then, I have studied and practiced mental techniques to get through tough parts of training and racing. I admit, I haven’t given a race my all in the way I did that year, so I can’t say for sure that the mental strategy I learned after this race has made me a better racer, but it has definitely made me a better runner, and a better coach. I know that mental tips I have passed on to clients have gotten them through their own worst race situations. I also learned that there’s pride to be had in going after a goal and knowing that you did your best. And it’s humbling, which is always a good learning experience, too.

If you’re interested, here are some posts I wrote on mental training:

5 Mental Running Tips to Help You Through a Tough Run

The Runner’s Brain – How to Think Your Way to Being a Better Runner

Mental Workouts for Runners (this one was part of the Run It series!)

Okay, let’s keep this going with some amazingly bad race experiences from my friends, shall we? Click the links below to find out all the ways you can have a worst race ever!

Allie from Vita Train 4 Life 

Angela from Happy Fit Mama

Laura from This Runner’s Recipes

Nellie from Brooklyn Active Mama