Sunrise 6K Race Report: How Bad Do You Want It?
This morning I participated in the semi-annual November Project Sunrise 6K race. Not to be confused with the Victoria's Secret semi-annual sale. Totally different animal, although there is arguably more skin on display at the Sunrise 6k. Although its called the Sunrise 6k, I will point out that the sun was no where to be seen until well after the race was over. Semantics. Moving on. I bet you are expecting this post to be some kind of analysis of my race performance using some analogies from the sport psychology book "How Bad Do You Want It?". While I do have some thoughts on that matter, this post is actually about poop. So if you don't like poop talk, you should probably stop reading. Today was the day that I asked myself "How bad do you want it?" The it in this case wasn't winning or getting a PR or catching that girl who just passed me, it was poop. How bad do you want to poop? The answer was, very badly. But probably not badly enough to run so fast I lose control and poop my pants. That joyful occurrence is probably reserved for national championships, the Olympics, Ironman races and maybe the Boston Marathon. Since I will never make it to most of those races, I think its safe to say I will never poop my pants in a race.
This morning I, along with several others apparently (you know who you are), made a rookie racing mistake. I didn't give myself enough time in the morning to visit the porcelain throne pre-race. I normally don't have this problem before early morning workouts, but there is something about pre-race adrenaline that really gets things moving. While there were 3 bathrooms within a stone's throw of the start and finish line, they were ALL locked. WTF San Francisco, don't you know that when you gotta go, you gotta go?
The lesson is: get up 10 minutes earlier so you can poop at home. Otherwise you are forced to carry around a whole bunch of very uncomfortable dead weight for 3.75 miles. There should be some kind of time handicap for racing while having to poop, 15 seconds sounds reasonable.
All kidding aside, this morning was lots of fun. I PRd in the 5k and the 6k and got to chase some Stanford runners around AT&T park. I do think I have created "safe" paces for myself because I stuck right to that 6 min/mile pace even when Lauren (?) from Stanford passed me casually in the first lap. My legs felt fine and I should have gone with her but I clearly have a mental block. I saw the effects of "no-man's land" when I was alone for much of the third lap and my pace dropped significantly. Some good running, and some good lessons.
And for the record, I pooped twice before 8:40 and feel pretty confident I've got a third in me before the day is out.