I ran a 1200m time trial this morning, three weeks out from my target mile race. I’ve been building toward this workout for weeks and looking forward to it telling me where I stood. I was confident about the data. I thought I was ready for whatever the data said.
I was wrong about the second part.
This week started with a problem: the track I train on is fenced off for resurfacing. No oval, no lane lines, no clean 400m loop. So, since the only other tracks near me are also usually locked, I improvised for today, opting for a pretty flat stretch of the paved path around Green Lake. I set my watch for 400m repeats and ran a warmup from my house to the lake this morning.
The moment I started, something was off.
I couldn’t find a rhythm. Couldn’t lock into a pace. Then I turned a corner and got hit with a headwind (if you’re in Seattle, you know we’re having a big change in the weather today). My legs wouldn’t turn over. My form disappeared. I was laboring, and thought there’s no way I can sustain this pace. Worse, it wasn’t even that fast.
My splits: 84.6, 90.3,
I actually paused my watch at 800m. Stood there for about 15 seconds. Thought about quitting.
Quitting is not something I do. I just don’t. I once shredded my plantar fascia 16 miles into a marathon and finished anyway, mostly hopping the last ten miles. Quitting is just not a thing I do. And there I was, on the path around Green Lake, actually considering it.
I turned back into the crosswind and ran the last 400. Split: 85.6.
When I finished I felt like I might have had 200 meters left in me, but it would not have looked good. And it definitely would not have been fast. I felt demoralized. Fuck. Dude, you’re old. What a stupid idea to try a mile after years of running long and slow. This sucks. You’re going to embarrass yourself. Why did you write about this in your newsletter? What an idiot. Why are you even doing this?
I’ve written in this newsletter about affective forecasting. The research showing that humans are spectacularly bad at predicting how future events will feel. We overestimate the highs. We overestimate the lows. We think we know what it will be like to get the thing we want, or the thing we dread. We’re usually wrong.
I thought I had accounted for this. I told myself: whatever the time trial shows, it’s just information. Data is data. Besides, I thought, I’ve recently touched paces faster than I’ve run in two decades.
Yet, I spiraled the whole cooldown run home. Not because the splits were catastrophic (they weren’t, objectively, especially considering my last was about the same as my first and I dropped it right after thinking about quitting) but because this was supposed to answer a question, and the answer scared me. I’d been looking forward to this workout for weeks. I thought it would be clarifying. Instead it made me afraid of my race.
That gap between how I expected to feel and how I actually felt? That’s the whole thing, isn’t it? I knew the concept. I’d even written about it. And I still couldn’t predict my own response to a bad workout on a windy path at Green Lake. So the response isn’t so much about my training as it is what I do with the feelings.
So where does that leave me, three weeks out?
Scared, honestly. The conditions were not ideal (no track, no rhythm, crosswind on an uneven path). I know that. But knowing that isn’t the same as explaining it away. I’m not doing that, either. The splits were what they were. The workout told me something, and I’m trying to actually hear it. I think I’ve known for weeks (and I think I even said so in a previous newsletter) that running fast repeats with recovery jogs in between is not the same thing as sustaining a pace for 1609 meters.
What am I going to do with what I learned? Adjust my goal? Trust the fitness and chalk this up to a bad day? I haven’t decided. I’m focusing on not reacting to the feelings.
A few years ago, I would have found something to blame, or defended my feelings against the news. The headwind, the path, the missing track; I’d have stacked those up like evidence. Today I spiraled. I’m turning toward the bad news, letting it wash over me, and trusting that I can come out the other side with a clear head.
I don’t know what I’m going to do about the time I have before the race. But I’m looking at the truth of it. That’s new. That feels like growth.
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