The devil on my shoulder refers to the negative thoughts that go through my brain when I am either running or racing. It's that voice that tells me I can't do this or other negative self talk. It totally messes with my confidence and it really can wreak havoc on a person's performance if you let it. If you're a runner, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of times I am able to fend him off. This would not be one of those times.
The 3rd Annual Rock Hall HM/Rock City 10K/5K is a race in DT Cleveland with the start and finish at the Rock Hall. It has always been one of my favorite races because the course has gone through the downtown city streets, there is a great race vibe with great race bling, and the post-race goodies never disappoint. They also have cool gender-specific shirts and this year they even gave us Brooks technical ones! This was the first year they offered a 10K distance and they also included a HM 3-person relay and even virtual races. In the past two years, I've done the 5K and both years not only did I place 1st and 2nd in my AG respectively, I've also set lifetime 5K PRs both years so I was torn whether I should try for year #3 of retaining my AG placing, PR the course again, see if I could beat
my current PR from a 5K I did on Mother's Day this year, or run the new 10K. When I learned they changed the 5K course, I was glad I signed up for the 10K because it wouldn't be an apples-to-apples comparison from the previous years….that is until I found out both the 5K and 10K courses would be an out and back from the Rock Hall, down the Marginal (the road that runs north and south along Routes 2 and 90 heading into the city). There is no shade and not a lot of green space so the temperature is always warmer because of the heat coming off of the pavement. Plus, it is a straight shot and extremely boring with nothing really interesting to look at which makes it seem like it goes on forever, and ever, AND ever. I refer a course such as this as a death march and one of the reasons I've always said I would never run the HM offered because the last 3 or so miles of that race went down the Marginal with a hill right at the end a few hundred years from the finish line. This year, the 5K and 10K runners would be getting share in the "fun" now too because all of our races would finish that very same way and not only that, I'd get to do the death march x 2 having to run down it and then back. Yay me! Maybe I should have signed up to do the 5K after all.
The course
All distances started and ended at the Rock Hall with all the races joining each other at some point. I've already talked about course above so I don't really have much to say but here's a picture of what the 10K looked like and the elevation profile. This year they had live bands playing along the course every few miles. That was something new they added.
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Not really as flat as I thought it was going to be. |
Goals
With the on again, off again, "it's your-hamstring-but-not-your-hamstring issues" I have been having, I haven't been doing a lot of speed work AKA racing this summer. Even though I've raced the 10k distance twice before (the Kiss Me I’m Irish 10K held in March
2016 and
2017), without having a lot of fast running under my belt lately, I really didn't know what to expect. I was hoping that with this course being relatively flat and the Kiss Me race being hilly and curvy, I'd at LEAST be able to beat my
10K PR of 53:20 if only by a couple seconds. Since this was a new race for me, my other goal as it is for any new race, was to place in the top 10 but I thought that might even be too adventurous since this race has been heavily advertised over the past year all over the country and was the first time the race had a local TV station as a sponsor so I assumed all the super speedy ladies in my AG would be showing up making the competition fierce and darn near impossible to beat. Lastly, my self-confidence was still kind of in the dumps after my horrible performance during that Friday night 5K in July and quite honestly was kind of afraid to race again for fear of blowing it so I had no idea what to expect and was just going to wing it see how things played out.
Black cat strikes again
I am not sure what it is about my silly cat and her always wanting to sit on my race get up when I'm trying to get it ready the night before. Hmmm...maybe she would give me some black cat luck like she did when she sat on my race get up for the
5 Miler (a race I unexpectedly killed it at) I did 5 days before my Friday Night 5K bomb but I wasn't counting on it.
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| Silly cat! |
Running with the devil begins
I am lucky if I can get 3-4 hours of continuous sleep on any given night but for some reason when I went to bed Saturday night, I CRASHED and slept the entire night so when my alarm went off at 4:52, I turned it off completely forgetting that I had a race and went back to sleep. Figures the morning I am actually sleeping I can't enjoy. Luckily I woke up again and at 5:45, I got out of bed to start getting ready. Good thing but the devil on my shoulder, who I had trying to keep at bay all week, started playing the mind games. Race morning was not starting off on the right foot and I started having my doubts about the race itself. After my two cups of coffee, a bite of a banana, we headed out the door. As we were driving, I started obsessing about how horrible the death march was going to be and Paul brought up a good point that I'd be running right by the lake and would be able to see the boats and such so that made me feel a little bit better. Also, in past years it has been so humid and nasty but this year is was in the upper 60s and the humidity was pretty low. There is some positive self talk…maybe this race wouldn't be so bad after all.
Yep, devil isn't going anywhere
Luckily we only live about 25 minutes from the city and we didn't have to worry about parking this race. They were expecting 2,500 people and parking can be kind of a pain when the race is smaller with a 1,000 but Paul and Rick were volunteering at a water stop and were going to park there so we got off at East 9th right in front of the Rock Hall, I jumped out, and Paul and Rick drove over to where they needed to be. I was happy they were assigned the stop on the Marginal between HM mile marker 11 and 12 so I would get to see them during the last 2-3 miles of my race especially since I wouldn't have them (or anyone else I thought) cheering me on at the finish.
It was absolutely PACKED (and this is just the front of the Rock Hall):
The races were staggered so the HM started at 7:15, the 10K started at 7:30, and the 5K started at 7:45. I had about 25 minutes to use the restrooms and get a quick warm up in so I was there in plenty of time…or so I thought. I decided to make my way through the crowd of people towards the porta johns and found this:
Yes, that's the line and when I took that picture I only had 15 minutes until race time so I started to panic…was it a bathroom break (which I desperately needed) or a warm up because I would not have time for both. I could not believe with the amount of people they were anticipating that that was the ONLY row of bathrooms. The line barely moved and that only made the devil on my shoulder worse. Luckily, one of my friends (John) whom I didn't know was running the 10K too, saw me and said there was a whole other row of bathrooms behind the ones I was waiting in line for and there were only 20 people in line so we made a mad dash over there. Can you tell there is another row behind those porta johns? No, me neither and it would have been nice if there was a sign letting the runners know this or to have the race announcer say something. It's not like they couldn't see the line because just to the left of me is where HM startling line was and all distance finish lines were. While we were waiting in line, John asked what kind of time I was looking at so I told him I'd hope to at least like to match or beat my PR from the March 10K and would be happy with anything around 53:00.
With 10 minutes to spare, I had just enough time for a quick warm up so off I went away from the crowd. These races usually have a starting mat so even if I wasn't right there when the gun went off, it wouldn’t matter so I wasn't TOO worried and thought maybe NOW this race wouldn't be so bad…Oh but wait, there's more.
Where oh where is the starting line
All the races were supposed to start at the same spot like they did last year but apparently that wasn't the case. When I was done with my warm up, I went to where the HM racers began and I was wondering where the heck all the 10K people were. Only a couple minutes and no start flags, no 10K runners. I started to panic and started making my way over to the Browns stadium up the street a bit because I knew from looking at the course map that we'd be running around it. I still couldn't see a starting line and asked someone if they knew where the race began and the person told me they announced they moved the start actually at the Browns Stadium (missed that announcement because of my warm up) so I started running and finally found all the other 10K people. I also saw one of the XC moms (Laurie) who is runner and is one of the serious contenders in her AG. Luckily, she is not in mine and therefore not my competition but she is faster than I am and little did I know how much she was going to help me during this race. We chatted for a bit and just as we think it's time to go, they start moving the start flags so instead of starting at the stadium and running around it and then toward the Marginal, we would now be running in FRONT of the stadium and making our way there. This race has been so well run the past two years I couldn't believe what a mess things seemed to be and other runners were obviously annoyed like I was. Anyway, so they started the countdown and the gun went off. I kept waiting to cross over the timing mat so I could start my Garmin but there wasn't one in sight so apparently this was going to be a gun start. It's a darn good thing I found out about those other bathrooms because had I got up to the starting line only to find out it was a gun start, I would have been miffed. After a few seconds when I realized there was no mat, I started my watch. Needless the say, all of this added more fuel to the fire where the devil is concerned, throwing me even more off my game, and it was at that point, I was pretty sure the devil was there to stay.
Running with the devil
There was a slight breeze which made for a decent start but I just felt so far off my game and no matter what technique I tried, I just could NOT shake the negative self talk and ran that way pretty much the entire race. I decided I was not going to look at my watch and just run. I think I looked once or twice at a mile split but that was it. The devil kept telling me the race was doomed from the start and seeing how slow I thought I was running was only going to make matter worse. I tried not to look at the freeway signs because then I'd know how much further I had to go and with each passing mile, it felt like a constant struggle to just keep moving and my brain kept focusing on how tired and horrible I was feeling but I tried to combat that with telling myself to just slow down if I needed too.
It was also struggle with as they say "my race, my pace" when it came to Laurie. Even though she is the 55-59 AG and not my competition in that regard, she's pretty darn fast and I can only think of one race we were in together where I had a faster time, and that was only because she was running with a friend who had just started running and who was much slower than both of us. For this race, we started off together, she got head of me, and I was able to pass her and keep my lead for awhile but in between miles 3 and 4, there was a hill going up to E 55th where we'd run across the bridge and then back down the other side of the Marginal heading back to the city. Doesn't look like much of a hill in a car but running it was another story and I was struggling pretty bad as it was so it felt like a mountain. As soon as we descended the hill on the other side to head back, Laurie took the lead and I would see the back of her for the remainder of the race. I kept telling myself I didn't have to run as fast as she was and it was ok that she was in the lead but pretty much fought that devil the rest of the race, too. However, I did make it my goal to no let her get too far ahead of me and that kept me moving.
We passed the water stop where her husband and boys were volunteering and since she didn't stop, neither did I. I didn't want her to gain too much of a lead. The death march was just as bad as I thought it was going to be because remember how Paul thought I'd be able to see the lake and just focus on that? Well, that part of the Marginal goes in front of a small airport so all you got to see what the runway…no lake, no boats. And the temperatures had started to rise so it was getting HOT…ANNND there was no shade and what little breeze there was at the beginning of the race was gone. This was a death march for sure. I forced myself to not look at the gates along the fence of the airport because I knew Rick and Paul were at Gate 11 (which was still a way aways at this point) and I'd still have some miles to go once I saw them so I just tried to focus on Laurie and tried to keep running at our paces. One thing good I can say is I noticed I wasn't getting passed by a lot of people which I thought was odd because I'm ALWAYS getting passed so that was a little bit of a mental boost. I was taking whatever I could get at this point. Who knew what not getting passed by many people would mean later on.
To stop or not to stop
I really felt like I was losing steam and my mental game was shot so I started to think if maybe I'd stop at the water stop where Rick, Paul, several of Rick's XC teammates, and the two assistant coaches were and maybe take a short walk break, drink some water, and start running again I would be ok. As we approached the water stop, Laurie didn't stop and again, I didn’t want her to get too far ahead plus, I got a little boost a from everyone cheering us on so I grabbed a cup of water from Rick on the fly, attempted to take a drink (failing miserably) and kept going. Paul yelled out to me that I needed to catch Laurie and I yelled back "I can't!" Ha! There's that devil hanging on with only 2 or so miles to go.
Hmmm, maybe there's hope
I eventually got to the spot where the 5K runners joined the 10K and HM course. At first, I just kept thinking about how much farther I had to go and also started dreading the hill at the end right before the finish. The hill at the E 55th bridge about killed me, there was no way I'd be able to manage that hill and have a strong finish. I was a little annoyed because there were SO many people (most of them walkers) and I thought I'd have to do a lot of bob and weaving but it actually wasn't bad at all AND it actually helped with that dang devil! I was passing everyone so in my mind I pretended I was in the 5K too and being able to pass people completely changed the way I was feeling mentally and before I knew it, I sailed up that hill like it was no one's business and the finish line was in my sights.
"Rock star" finish
Since I wasn't watching my Garmin, I had no idea where I was time-wise and all I was focused on was the finish and not the clock. My friend, John, usually places in his AG so he finished well ahead of me and to be honest, I forgot that he was even at the race. I didn't realize he was waiting at the finish for the final push until all the sudden there he was and I heard him say "Joy, look at the clock, you're in the 50:00s and when I looked up, holy Moses I sure was and I was able to give it one last kick. I crossed the finish line and stopped my Garmin. 50:57 and new PR by over three minutes! Well look at that!!! Completely out of breath, I grabbed the water and finisher's medal they were handing out at the finish line and took a walk so I could get my breathing back under control. John found me and we headed over to the computers were to check our official times and see how we fared against everyone else in the 10K. I could NOT believe my eyes when I saw I was 1st in my AG!!!! I was floored. My official chip time was 51:02 and another bronze guitar to add to my award wall! John placed 1st in his AG so we took each other's pictures in front of the computer monitors that displayed our stats and headed over for some post-race goodies: bananas, watermelon, cookies, and pizza. Yum! They also had bottled water, some new sports drink that was one of the sponsors, coconut water, and fruit popsicles from a local place I refer to as the Starbucks of organic and local fruit juice smoothies/beverages and other healthy food options. I was surprised the watermelon and beet juice one I grabbed didn't taste half bad.
They always have GREAT race bling and everyone gets a finisher's medal:
I ended up finding Laurie whom I had lost in the sea of people right before the hill toward the finish. With her chip time of 50:50, she placed 2nd in her AG and I was pretty dang pleased with myself I was only 12 seconds behind her. Guess I hung with her better than I thought. I also found my co-worker who had walked the 5K. We usually meet up before a race but it was just a cluster that morning I completely forgot to call her and tell her I was there. They decide to hand out the awards at the finish line rather than over in front of the Rock Hall so people could still cheer on runners which was a nice change. They also had Elvis and the cougar mascot from a local radio station so when I went up to get my award, I high fived both of them. What's not to love about getting a high five from Elvis, especially after you just killed it!
After the awards were done, Laurie and I walked to where our families were volunteering. It was fun cheering on everyone else who was finishing the race as we walked in the opposite direction they were coming. When we got to Paul and Rick's spot, we all chatted for a bit and I thanked her for being my pacer (unbeknownst to her) and helping me finish the race. She said goodbye and headed further down where her DH and sons were.
Final thoughts
This race was probably THE most mentally challenging race to date for two reasons: that dastardly devil I was never able to fend of completely and the course itself. I think had things gone a little smoother before the race, I would have had a better mindset in the beginning. As for the course, I often run out and back routes during my training runs so that wasn't the problem so much but rather where this particular course was, the fact there was no shade, there was nothing exciting around you to look at to keep your mind distracted, and things that aren't that far away by car seem like an eternity when you're on foot. Had the course gone through the downtown city streets, I know it would not have been so bad mentally. I talked to several people before and after the race and they agreed what a less-than-desirable and boring course it was. I even know one person who said she could be paid enough money to run it was so I wasn't alone in my thinking.
When you look at my splits below, you can definitely tell I was slowing down as the race went on, namely during/after the E 55th bridge. Of course I would have preferred negative splits and if they weren't negative, at least be at little bit closer than they were but at the end of the day, it's the time you cross the finish line that matters and I am still very thrilled with my performance.
It kind of dawned on me as I was writing this that the reason I was feeling so "crappy" and tired during wasn't because I was racing poorly but quite the contrary. I was pushing myself and had it felt easier, would I have been running at my full potential? Probably not. I will definitely keep this in mind and try to "embrace the suck" a little more next time because it usually means good things.
Even though I ran with the devil and wasn't able to get the positive talk working for me like it did during the
5 Miler I ran in early July, I was still able to use racing strategies that have worked with me in the past at other races: not looking at my Garmin and having a target who this time happened to be Laurie.
Laurie and I both figured when there weren't a whole lot of people passing us nor were there really a lot of people around us in general during the race that it was just a REALLY small race (like less than 100). Little did we know this was because we were in FRONT of everyone.
In closing, for a race that I thought was doomed from the start and was a constant battle with the devil on my shoulder ended up and with yet another unexpected "rock star" finish, just as it has the past two years. Never, ever did I think I would even place in my AG, much less get 1st and once again, the Rock Hall race did not disappoint. Three years, 3 AG placings, and a PR every single year? I guess I can tell that devil where it can go…. LOL
Thanks for taking the time to read if you made it all the way to the end. =)
Stats
51:02
8:12 pace
1/ 24 AG
14/222 Females
38/305 Overall
Splits
8:11
8:10
8:09
8:21 (guess you can kind of figure where the E 55th bridge was)
8:26
8:35
7:35
