The Sweetest 6 Seconds

My chip time for the Provo Freedom Run 10K was 47:54.

After training and obsessing about this race for the past 10 months it was nice to get the race over with. I was confident that I had run every training run I was supposed to, including 10 milers and sprint intervals.

The night before the race I could not sleep at all. I didn't even doze. I laid awake in my hotel all night tortured by waking "what if" dreams. What if my playlist was too slow, maybe it was too fast, maybe I should insert "Roll Tide" into the playlist. What if people roughed me up or tripped me because I was wearing a Canada shirt? What if I didn't drink enough water last night, what if I drank too much and needed a break during the race? What if I started out too fast, what if I started too slow and got boxed in? What if we couldn't find parking and I had to jog 2-3 miles to the start? What if I got up too early, what if I got up too late? A thunderstorm rolled through at about 4AM with some rain. What if the roads were wet and I slipped on the downhill...?

As the restlessness wore on my head began to spin and I got a low grade headache.

The hotel wake up call at 530AM was most welcome. The "what if's" stopped and I decided to get out of bed. I was so tired.

The roads were dry and the sky was now clear. We found parking easily. Nobody even noticed my Canada shirt, let alone objected to it. I went for a warm up jog and felt surprisingly fast and awake. But my mouth was very dry.

I lined up in the area marked "7 minute mile pace". A thin black man, dubbed "The Kenyan", finished his warm up and lined up at the front of the pack. As I expected, slow runners began lining up in my area. Usually I politely tolerate this, but today I pushed closer to the front ahead of them. I didn't have time to weave past them at the beginning. The thin unshaven unshowered man next to me had a jersey on with a little "New Zealand" in the upper left chest. "Looks like I'm not the only non American in the race...", I joked. He chuckled nervously. He managed to share that he was from New Zealand but living in Nevada and was in town to visit relatives but really was here to run a race. He was worried about starting out too fast...

The race began after a ten minute delay. I pushed my way to the starting line. No more Mr. Nice Guy and getting passed by everybody at the beginning. This was a new philosophy: start like Seabiscuit. I was going to push the first mile, hoping to finish that mile in 7 minutes, then push the downhill section which was almost another mile, and finally settle into a 7:30 pace for the rest of the race. The point was to get ahead of the crowd so as to not waste energy trying to maneuver through them or being boxed in.

The first mile was uphill. The mouth dryness was bothering me. I didn't think it was dehydration as it had started before the race, but it wasn't helping at all. Still, I pushed on and managed to finish the first mile in 7 minutes. Now on to the downhill section I had been practicing for months. Most recreational runners are uncomfortable on downhills, but I am confident and comfortable with them. And I didn't slip. I finished mile 2 at 14:15.

Now the race flattened out until mile 6. My mouth finally moistened up at about the three mile mark. That first 3 miles was finished at 21:22. At the time I realized vaguely that it was a personal best time. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep prevented me from realizing that A. It was a 43 minute 10K pace, much faster than my predicted finish and hence likely too fast and B. It was a 7:07 mile pace, again too fast to expect to sustain. I think that even had my sleep deprived brain been able to accomplish the simple math, the ability to decide to slow down was not there. So I continued to race at that pace.

Mile 4 was finished at 29:12, a 7:15 mile pace. Mile 5 was finished at 37:34, a 7:31 mile pace. I glanced at my watch at the five mile mark and noticed I was there at 37 minutes. My goal was 45 minutes. I thought I was on track to make my time, but again, my sleep deprived brain could not do the math. I needed to finish that final 1.2 miles in 7 minutes 26 seconds in order to make my goal. That is a 6:12 per mile pace. And the final mile was uphill.

It was a moot point anyway. The wheels fell off after 5 miles. In running terms, I bonked. I couldn't even hear my playlist cadences, let alone move my feet that fast. I reverted to my natural resting pace. My head started telling me to stop or walk. But then I saw my mom and niece and nephew waving and cheering for me. And somewhere ahead near the finish my wife waited. "No," I thought, "I may not be running my fastest, but there is no way I am going to let my family watch me walk to the finish." I also realized that to them it appeared that I was running hard. So I stood up straight and started swinging my arms and pushing as hard as I could.

By the time I could see the finish line, the race clock read 47:40 with 40 yards left to run. I could not accept that I had come ten months and hundreds of training miles only to run 48 minutes or longer. This race had to be a personal best, if only by a few seconds. Other runners were sprinting past me to the finish, inspiring me to push on. I could see the seconds ticking down as I got closer...45, 46, 47...my legs and lungs burned...50, 51, 52...waves of nausea passed over me as I fought off the dry heaves...53...Once last glance at the clock before I crossed the line showed 47 minutes.

My head was spinning. I could barely stand, let alone keep moving as one of the race volunteers shouted at me to get out of the finish area. Somehow I walked to the chip removal area where a young lady snipped the timing chip off my shoe. The dry heaves began again. I wandered to a picnic pavilion and laid down on the concrete floot. The world was spinning.

47:54. I had beat my personal best by 6 seconds. On no sleep. At 4600 feet of elevation. Uphill for the first and last mile.