By Justin Freeman
Factory Team
I’m not the kind of person who is likely to ever stop racing. And as you probably know if you are reading this, once you put on a bib, you aren’t just interested in finishing the race. You are more interested in doing well. And what does it mean to do well? It means to achieve some goal you have set for yourself.
Sometimes that goal could be to simply finish the race. I am learning that with a full-time job and a family just getting to the start line can be quite an accomplishment. Even then, we soon want more. At the beginning of this summer I set myself an ambitious goal. I wanted so set a personal best in a running event. Since I was an All-American in college (albeit in Division III), this was a tall task. I found a fast, competitive, five mile race and circled the date on my calendar.
My training program was based on a program recommended by the legendary running coach Jack Daniels (no relation to a more famous individual from Kentucky). I believe that skiers have a lot to learn from running coaches and I will probably write more about how the Jack Daniel's plan relates to ski training in the future. I set intermediate goals and benchmarks, both for workouts and races I would compete in. For most of the summer I was achieving benchmark after benchmark, the odd workout that I felt bad in was balanced by a race where I exceeded my expectation.
As the summer wore on I came three seconds from matching my five kilometer record on a day I did not expect to get very close. This was heartening, but it had me worried. I spoke with the coach I work with and we both worried that I was going to “fall off a cliff.” A week later I had an impressive effort in an uphill time trial against my brother. I tried to keep my volume high and my intensity low to drag out the peak. A week before the big race I ran my last tune-up. I ran an unimpressive time to win big against a weak field and left not knowing where I stood.
On the day of the big race, I warmed up, put on the singlet of the running team I had just joined, and laced up my absurdly light racing shoes. I ran hard from the gun, settling in a little behind the lead group. At the first mile I looked at my watch. It said 4:55; I was exactly on pace. At two miles I looked down and read 10:00, and began to make peace with the idea of not running a record. Still, I was moving up in the field, I was in seventh place now and sixth place was fading - a podium finish was in sight. By three miles I was 15:15, running a slow time but still right in the mix, still well within the top ten and watching the race for second place unfold.
And suddenly, at three and a quarter miles, I was done. I wasn’t injured, or out of breath, or sore, I just suddenly could not run fast. The runner I was dueling with pulled away. Then a runner who I had passed as he faded passed me back. I heard footsteps and accelerated a bit, thinking it was another runner who I knew must hurt as much as I did. The acceleration didn’t work, and within seconds two runners passed and dropped me. After that I stopped counting. By four and a half miles I was more worried about finishing at all than how many people passed me.
What now? What do I do with myself after failing miserably in a race I have been focused on for months? As I see it I have a couple of choices. I could declare myself to be in a higher level of retirement, and stop worrying about going fast. I could simply lower my sites and set an easier goal next year. I am good enough at math that I could come up with a very credible formula that “proves” slower times represent faster running. And I could even do the same thing next year and hope really hard that I can hang on for two weeks longer this time.
Or I can figure out how to succeed...
I can take a hard look at my training, figure out what is missing, what is misplaced, and what I did too much of. I can look at my school and family life and figure out creative ways to meet all my obligations while training just a bit more. And I can keep aiming high, knowing I might miss.
In the end, if you aren’t failing sometimes you are aiming too low. In athletics, in work, in life, if you don’t have goals so lofty you might just never achieve them, you will never reach your potential. Indeed, most paths to success involve a fair amount of failure along the way. Keep all of this in mind when you set goals for this season, and especially when you evaluate your season next April. |
