Lessons From My First Race

 Recently I went on my first race, and learned a few things on the way. I’ve been running for 6months as of this writing, with my first run being a long, tiring, torturous 3k jog. I started out badly, and felt like I got kicked in the ass whilst doing so, but today, I run twice a week, every Tuesdays and Thursdays doing 13k per run, 10k more than my original run.

It happened two weeks ago, one of the best people to ever influence me to run, Paul, got me into a raffle for some race kits for an upcoming race on June 9, Sunday. By a great deal of luck, I won a free kit and found myself signing up for the 10k. It’s less than what I usually run, but in all honesty, I am pretty sure I am not well-equipped yet to hit 21k. So then by Monday of last week, I found myself signed up for a race, my very first race. I was more nervous than excited. I’ve never ran with a big ass group before and on a normal basis, I don’t even like running in pairs because I get self-conscious (side note: this is because I smell like a dirty, wet rag after running) which made this race a ‘big’ deal for me. But then, nervousness aside, I finished my first 10k race in 1 hour and 9 minutes, Galloway style. And here’s some of the lessons I’ve learned:

1.       Start slow, finish strong. This was the best piece of advice I EVER got from anyone. An ultra marathon runner and senior manager here at our office told me this when I asked him for running advice and it just made perfect sense. During the race, I watched people literally zip past me on my first 6k, but I wasn’t worried. These people were in a rush, they zipped past everyone and they would shout to breathe. But you know what? By the 7^th kilometer, these same people were sitting on the sidewalk while drinking at the water stops and when I crossed the finish line, they were nowhere to be found. A big majority of them only crossed the finish line after I had changed, drank my free sports drink and hailed a cab. So like they say, it doesn’t matter how you started, what matters is where you finish.

2.       Bad things happen, you just have to make the best of it and move forward. My first race was not without mistakes, and here were a few of them: not bringing my own water bottles therefore making it difficult for me to get hydrated when the hydration stations had no water, not looking at signs closely and almost running on the 21k route and last but not least: not checking my gear before the race hence my arm band malfunctioned and I had to spend almost two minutes adjusting the band and tying it onto my arm.

3.       Always push to finish what you started. Sometime during the race when I was just about to go into sprint mode, I saw people who had burned themselves out. They had the look of defeat all over them and some were already sitting by the hydration stops and those who continued started walking all the way through. At this point, a small devilish voice inside me told me that it’s okay to stop and take the easy way out, especially because I didn’t pay for my race kit anyway. But then I thought about how lucky I was to be there and to run in a race I didn’t pay for and I felt all the more that I should finish it. Someone else could have been running in my place but I got the free kit. It would be a crying shame if I put it to waste, even if the opportunity was free.

After the race, I felt this really good invigorating feeling inside my gut (deep shit, I know, it may have been an after effect of drinking Chuckie Chocolate Milk). I was happy with the outcome of my first race and even happier for the fact that I had taken some valuable lessons along with me. I never thought a 10k race would have some life lessons in store for me, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise.