Monday, November 5, 2012

The Next Race?

When I broke my leg, I experienced a bit of dissociation. After crying in front of two doctors, I pretty much blocked out that I am missing CIM this year (as well as my last prep race, the Clarksburg Country Run half marathon). I should be upset, but I've pretty successfully separated my current self from my self that is obsessed with racing.

I've done this so successfully, in fact, that I don't have another race planned. My initial thought was to not pick my next race until I get the brace off and see how well I'm doing. Why sign up for something when I might not be able to do it? What if it takes a long time to get back, and I foolishly signed up for a March marathon? That would be devastating.

I started to question this strategy a bit last week. I was in a meeting, and had someone who is pretty familiar with my running ask me when my next race was. No matter what I said, he didn't seem to get that I didn't have a next race planned. At the time, I honestly wanted to punch him (I would never do that). But after talking about it with someone else, his logic started to make more sense.

If I wait until I start trying to run in December, I might be conservative and not plan a race until I feel 100%. I might miss opportunities to push myself by having races to test my fitness and set goals. I will certainly miss out on most marathons if I wait to register, because they fill up so far in advance.

The opposing theory is that I'll sign up and either find out I can't train enough for the race, or be stubborn and train too hard and injure myself. That would be bad. But is there a middle ground?

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