Today I was just doing a little surfing when I stumbled onto the Chuckanut 50k website. I have to admit I haven't even thought about this race since last year when I ran it and dropped out due to an injury. So I was once again surprised to see that the race is already full and I have once again slept through a race start. I know it wasn't a literal race start, but with certain races it is quickly becoming obvious that the race begins long before the gun goes off, or in the case of Chuckanut, someone yells GO!
According to the website the Chuckanut race filled in only 2 weeks and this is for a race that is on the other side of winter, in March. A lot of NW runners I know are starting to enter the slow-down or downtime for the year otherwise known as the bad weather, dark day, holiday busy time of year, December. Not only have I been trying to take it easy so that I don't build up mileage too fast for next spring, I have been trying to soften my enthusiasm so that I don't enter races every weekend. But this approach has just backfired since I missed my chance to enter one of my favorite races. It is even more annoying when I remember that I tried to enter too late for the same race a year before last. At that time I was then offered a wait-listed spot after I had already written off the race and re-arranged my schedule.
Generally I like to think of myself as a fairly organized person who plans ahead. But these sorts of races and lottery type races like the Western States 100 mile are starting to chop my hide. Last spring I made a special effort to gain a highly coveted entry to the McKenzie River Trail Run. In order to gurantee entry I had to schedule my time just to download and entry form on the first day it was posted and mail it on the same day. In the end, my efforts to enter a great and fun race yielded nothing because I became injuried a couple months before the race and had to cancel.
Of course none of my problems have been a result of poor race management or bad race directing. In fact, these races only continue to run so smoothly because of great race directors (thanks RDs). Sometimes it is just so frustrating that I have to not only train for races, I have to put in so much time coming up with a race schedule.
I really should quit my whining. I already know that the answer is just to do what I can to have fun. That is after all, why I run races in the first place! So I will try to mellow out about which races I run and when I run them. In the end it doesn't matter if I get to run Western States in two years or twenty years. Someday I will run it and on that day, or the day after, when I finish, that race will mean no less to me at age 50 than at age 30.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
That's a good attitude regarding that race. And just as you'll be glad to run it at any age, I'm just as impressed with someone that can wrap their mind around that!
Post a Comment