I lost a race, which was my first loss since mid-2009. In full disclosure, I didn't race in 2010, barely raced in 2011, and didn't race any race where I nessecarily should have been beat. That doesn't mean I didn't have some tough battles. Dusty C. pushed me to my limits at Baker Lake 50k. 1:20ish isn't much of a gap over 4 hours. Patrick Gibson finished oh so close at the All Comers 5k. Never expected that going into the race. The Orcas 25k was even too close for comfort. But I didn't race any college races, or any XC races in Seattle, or anything like that. I've been ducking competition a little bit. Well, that isn't exactly the truth. Racing sparingly has been a result of my fitness and health mostly. But when I signed up for the Honeywagon Runs, I was fairly certain I could win either race I entered. Turns out, I would have had a hard time winning either.
Hendrik Kok won the 4 miler. I'm pretty sure he was a D3 stud at Calvin College while I was a turd at Monmouth College. Looks like he's getting back into shape. But I didn't run the four mile. In my infinite wisdom, I opted for the half marathon to "get some extra miles in." If that is the way you're looking at your upcoming race, it should tell you one of two things. 1. Don't race. 2. Don't be upset when you suck. I've run plenty of races just to run them and have fun, but I've ALWAYS raced them. The one exception is when I entered to help a buddy run a certain time, and I used a fake name because I didn't want my name attached to the time. (Bonus points for anybody who can respond via comment with info on my alias that day: Andre Bucher).
So I'm running the little old Honeywagon. My last two mileage weeks were 7.5, then 70.5. I was in the midst of another 70 except I wussed out on my Friday night run. Hence the "running for extra miles." So sure that nobody would show up that could beat me, I ate two donuts and had coffee for breakfast. Seriously, who comes to the Honeywagon to run fast right? Its a great race, but is ALWAYS windy, and often times smelly. But somebody did show up ready to run fast. Josh Vander Wiele. And he was definitely more fit than I am currently. Jason Gulley pointed him out to me in the first half mile and I decided to go "race" him. And after 1.5 miles of thinking about just what exactly I was in for, I decided to back off and run with Jay, Collin, and Jason. I gave up and I hated every second of it. I may or may not have been able to hang with Josh and beat him. Who knows. Odds were that I would have hurt way more and lost anyway. It was the right decision. I wasn't mentally or physically ready to race so I bailed. Great race Josh.
But I still had to finish running the last 11 miles, which went by much quicker with other runners than they would have otherwise. Collin saved us from a hard charging (but probably friendly) massive looking dog by shouting, "You F@#* OFF" which sent the dog in the other direction. I helped play wind blocker for Jay who was trying to run sub 1:20 whether or not old mother nature was cooperating. We came oh so close with a 1:20:52 but just too much wind. Miles 11-12ish were into a brutal headwind, which was pure torture at that point in the race. We lost Colin in that stretch but Jay hung on with Gulley and I pushing against the wind. We decided to cross the finish three wide. But because of the chip timing, Gulley got second and an hour massage, Jay got third and Pickford Movie tickets, and I got fourth receiving nothing. Ha ha.
But overall a well run race. Check out the results HERE. Always good timing by BuDu Racing. Tyler Mitchell Photography got some sweet PHOTOS. Check them out! And most importantly, good times were had by all, and hopefully some of those awesome cookies were had by all.
And for me, its time to look forward to the next race. This one was fun. Running for running's sake, because I love it, win or lose. Maybe Stewart Mt. Maybe something else. It doesn't really matter as long as I'm out there having fun.
