I have spent an obnoxious amount of time thinking back over my race at Javelina (read the race report here).
A question keeps bouncing around in my mind.
Is there a difference between racing a 100-miler and setting out to finish one?
And if there is a difference, what did I do on Halloween night in the desert?
two key points before we get into it
Before we get into this entry, there are just two points that I want to emphasize. I try to make it clear throughout the post but I wanted to get ahead of it here:
I worked really hard at Javelina.
My time was 28:30:37. I believe I gave the course everything I had that night.
First, there was no coasting at Javelina. I wasn’t out for a twenty-eight hour stroll in the desert.
Secondly, I talk about times that I either slowed down during the race or took more time at an aid station than I necessarily needed.
Any “sacrifice” that I made to help a friend throughout the race, those friends gave just as much, if not more, back to me. I didn’t run 28:30:37 because I slowed down for others, I ran it because I had friends on the course that pushed me, kept me mentally dialed in, and helped me enjoy the day.
Ok, enough of that, now what the hell am I talking about?
WHAT IS RACING
When I think about racing, I think about optimization. I think about having your eyes on the finish line and not allowing yourself to be distracted by anything that doesn’t help you reach that finish line in the fastest time possible.
If you have seen horses racing, they wear something called blinkers (or blinders). They are a covering that goes around the eyes to limit peripheral vision to help the horses stay focused on their goal.
And there’s nothing wrong with that kind of focus. In fact, I admire it tremendously. And let’s be honest, if I was capable of optimizing my runs to be sub 13 hours for a 100-miler, I would be Optimist Prime!
In a 100-mile race, it might look different than in horse racing but there are similarities.
We have all seen the 100-mile elites running through aid stations, everything organized and optimized to save seconds.
Conversation limited to pertinent information that will help them cross the finish line faster than the next guy. My guess is that they wouldn’t have waited in an aid station to see if the Minnesota Gophers beat the Indiana Hoosiers in overtime of the football game. (They did not)
Those elites, they are racing. No question about it.
Nutrition locked in, aid stations efficient, pace dialed in, and living on the edge of winning and blowing up for over 12 hours straight.
And it’s awesome to see. They are absolutely spectacular.
WAIT…SO DID I NOT RACE JAVELINA
Well, here is where it got interesting.
I went into the race with full intention of racing it. Not racing it like the elites, I am nowhere near that. But I did want to race it with the mindset of the elites.
I wanted to be optimized. I wanted to be efficient. I wanted to do everything I could so that I could cross the finish line in less than 24 hours.
Until I didn’t.
I am extraordinarily competitive, possibly childish and annoyingly so if you asked my wife. I want to win in everything and I have been known to have meltdowns when it doesn’t happen, and that could just be during a game of cards. It has happened.
So, why then when a friend I was running with was having knee issues and needed to walk at a time I felt I was still capable of running, why didn’t I run. I could have moved up a place and kept moving at a faster pace.
Why when a different friend was suffering from the cold did I spend a little extra time waiting for him in an aid station so he would have someone to run with as he tried to get his body temp up? I could have headed out of the aid station and saved myself a few minutes and possibly moved up a place. Instead, I waited so we could tackle the next stretch together.
Why did it hurt me when another friend ended up DNFing at mile 52? There’s another place I moved up.
Why didn’t I take advantage of these moments?
MY FAVORITE MOMENT
Probably my favorite moment from the entire race is a moment that caught me off guard. It happened with about 2 miles left in the race and my friend who I walked with when he was battling the cold flew passed me, moving me back a place.
He told me he had been chasing my wife and me for 5 hours and he was so excited to catch up. He said some nice words to me about how I inspired him by never getting down throughout the race, and I told him to go get his buckle.
I probably passed a couple hundred people throughout the race, how in the world could one of my favorite moments be when someone passed me? Someone I was ahead of by quite a bit flew passed me and it made my day.
At 43 am I getting old and soft? Yes, that likely has a lot to do with it.
But to see someone that was as far down in the pain cave as a person can be work himself out of that and fight to get to the finish line is inspirational.
And you know what, I think it might be because I was at Javelina to finish the race, not necessarily race it.
FINISHING THE RACE
My Success/Failure Line, the minimum measurable outcome that you would genuinely be happy with when undertaking a challenging endevour, was to finish within the 30-hour cutoff.
That wasn’t to say I was going to coast to 30 hours, I always planned on pushing myself as hard as I could to have the best race possible.
But as these things were happening, guess what?
Those same friends spent time waiting on me. They walked when I needed to walk. They were patient with me at crew stops if I needed a little extra time. They gave me ideas as I was battling stomach issues.
The friends that I sacrificed for, sacrificed back for me as well.
If I could go back and run Javelina in 27 hours but I couldn’t help my friends get to the finish line, would I do it?
I can say, without hesitation, no way.
But here is a flip to the script. I would happily move my time to 29:30:00 if it meant my buddy that got hypothermia at mile 52 would have finished.
And that brings me to the question…
so where does that leave me?
Goodness, I have no idea, and honestly it will likely be a race by race decision.
My friends were a huge reason why I loved the race so much.
But, I do want to improve. My time is important to me.
I can say for Javelina, we struck a great balance. I may have waited at times for others, others 100% spent time waiting on me, and when the time came for us to go separate, we did that.
I am 43 years old and at a phase in my life that becoming elite at ultrarunning likely isn’t in the cards, and I am just going to go out and do the best that I can, while doing whatever I can to help others achieve their goals as well.
And I am 100% ok with that.
So will I go into races expecting to race them or finish them?
The answer is still unknown. But I do plan on giving every race that I enter all of the energy I have for that given day. Maybe some days it will be to get myself to the finish line as fast as possible and others it will be to help get as many people across as possible.
But I am going to love this sport either way.