The Gate River Run and The Evil Hart Bridge

The Gate River Run was brutal. It was the first time I’ve ever considered not finishing a race. I felt great for the first six and a half miles and then my legs said, “We’re done.” I have no idea what happened, maybe it was the lack of sleep over the past week. Maybe I lost too much weight this week. I dropped seven pounds. I don’t know what it was. I just know that I gassed. I struggled along fine, just in pain, which I can deal with. I slowed my pace down to eleven and a half minutes a mile and stopped at every water station. Then I started up that green summbitch, which I swear goes up a lot more than it comes down. This is where I thought about quitting. I started to feel funny, and I stopped running and started walking. My mind kept telling me to go go go, and if I didn’t have my heart monitor on I probably would have pushed it. Fortunately, I did have it on and knew that my heart rate should be under 175 since I was walking. My hamstrings were killing me going up that damned bridge. I just wanted it to be over so I would run for 100 steps. It had to have taken me ten minutes to get to the top of that thing. Coming down was easy. I basically fell down the bridge. This was one of my least favorite races. I felt like crap. It’s too long for me to run alone. I was bored. I should have worn my iPod or stayed with EG and JG. If this had been a 10k instead of a 15k it would have been one of my favorites. The last three miles were just awful. One positive was the massive amount of Seminole love coming from the spectators. I saw a couple of people I didn’t expect to see, which was cool in the first couple of miles, but I got passed on the Hart Bridge by someone who tapped me on the shoulder and waved at me. I waved back but I have no idea who she was. I finished almost exactly at my goal time, but I wasn’t really able to finish strong. As bad as this race was for me, it was still a positive experience, and I’m looking forward to next years. I ran eighteen minutes faster this year than I did two years ago, so that’s the bench mark for next year – 1:25 – and no I didn’t learn anything.